Hi,

The number of sunspts goes up and down every eleven years. Sometimes during the minimum time there are no sunspots for months. At the times with the most there can be dozens of sunspots on the Sun at once, so the speed at which they appear changes a lot.

Right now (sort of an inbetween time sunspot-wise) I think there are about four sunspot groups on the side of the sun facing us. Some of them can last for weeks. Still I will guess (without doing much research!) that we are getting a new group every couple weeks or so at this point.Each group may contain more than one spot.

Terry