A new statistical modeling approach is used to fit models to 200 years of sunspot data and the adequate models for yearly, monthly, and daily sunspot numbers are employed to obtain the minimum mean squared error forecasts. The analysis of new models revealed a long-term 76-year period, a short-term 27-year period, and a 2.5-year period due to stratospheric winds in addition to a commonly known 11-year periodicity of the sunspots. The forecasting charts are developed in a format that can be easily read to obtain the long-term (yearly average) and short-term (daily average) predictions of sunspot numbers. |