  We describe a new tool developed for solar flare forecasting on the base of
some sunspot group properties. Assuming that the flare frequency follows the
Poisson statistics, this tool uses a database containing the morphological
characteristics of the suspot groups daily observed by the Equatorial Spar of
INAF $-$ Catania Astrophysical Observatory since January 2002 up today. By
means of a linear combination of the flare rates computed on the base of some
properties of the sunspot groups, like area, number of pores and sunspots,
Zurich class, relative importance between leading spot and density of the
sunspot population, and type of penumbra of the main sunspot, we determine the
probability percentages that a flare of a particular energy range may occur.
Comparing our forecasts with the flares registered by GOES satellites in the
1$-$8 \AA{} X$-$ray band during the subsequent 24 hrs we measured the
performance of our method. We found that this method, which combines some
morphological parameters and a statistical technique, has the best performances
for the strongest events, which are more interesting for their implications in
the Earth environment.
