Yes
it is one of the signs we watch for to tell us how far away solarmax is

sunspots get closer and closer to the equator until solar max is reached and the sun's polar fields flip


"After a minimum the first sunspots of the new cycle appear some distance away from the sun’s equator. As the cycle progresses they more close to the equator. This is shown in Figure 2, sometimes called a “butterfly diagram”. The graph also shows sunspot numbers. As can be seen at a solar minimum there are few sunspots, as the cycle progress more and more of the sunspots are nearer to the equator"
[link to www.climatedata.info]

we also watch for northern filaments snaping and lifting off (cant find the article right now, sorry) and large low latitude coronal holes
"The Ultraviolet Coronagraph Spectrometer (UVCS) on SOHO has been used to observe large low-latitude coronalholes during solar maximum that produced fast solar wind streams."
[link to www.sciencedirect.com]

"During solar minimum, coronal holes are mainly found at the Sun's polar regions, but they can be located anywhere on the sun during solar maximum"
[link to en.wikipedia.org]

so watch for sunspots near the equator, filaments in the northern regions lifting off, large low latitude coronal holes, the movement of polar coronal holes moving away from the sun poles, and the magnetics of all this will cause more and more CMEs