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Advancing towards the July 1st transition: no change for our observers

The preparation of the July 1st transition is progressing at high pace. Hundreds of lines of codes are adapted for the new sunspot number series and for the new array of data files. The corrections can be subtle changes in hard-coded formulae for our two 12-month forecast methods, as well as large-scale modifications in our data pipeline controlling the flux of new data to route them to the proper archive file and database. There are so many diverse changes that we cannot guarantee that everything will work perfectly on the first try. Our team is too small to make full prior simulations. Therefore, multiple careful consistency checks will be done on July 1st itself, which will slow down the processing. So, please anticipate some delays compared to an ordinary month. An important remark for our faithful observers: the current transition in the sunspot number processing does not change anything to the way you enter your data. So, just proceed as usual on July 1st. Your past k personal coefficients will just be recomputed relative to the new re-calibrated sunspot number. We are working on this right now. By the way, the new processing software will open the way towards a better determination of the evolution of each station. So, a better feedback to our observers will become possible in the future. But first, we are fixing the past ....

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