Our star has suddenly sprung to life with activity as we passed into 2013. I made this animation using hourly images from the SDO between the 1st and 5th January and it shows well how the number of sunspots has inceased dramatically. Over the weekend, a profusion of new sunspot groups peppered the solar disk with dark cores - each one a potential source of eruptions. NOAA forecasters estimate a 35% chance of M-class flares and a 5% chance of X-flares during the next 24 hours.