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Is there a "season" for sunspots and auroras?
Kathy
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Kathy, I'm not for sure if you are asking if sunspots peak during a season here on earth or if they peak at any given time on the sun. We'll take it as in if the aurora or spots peak during a certain time of the year.
From ongoing research it appears that auroras are more prevalent in the fall and the spring, there's some links on the right that you can follow for about this. It appears that the magnetic field of the sun allows more geomagnetic storms through to our magentosphere (way above the earth's surfact) during the fall and spring.
As far as sunspots go, they run on an 11 year cycle. This means there are more sunspots during those 11 years. This is during the "solar maximum" there are more spots and solar flares. We don't know why the sun runs on an 11 year cycle but when there's more activity and more magnetic storms, we have more auroras.
http://www.spaceweather.com/java/sunspot.html
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/23sep\_auroraseason.htm
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/cgi-bin/tour\_def/sun/activity/solar\_cycle.html
