May is the traditional start of Sporadic E in the northern hemisphere. Sometimes it’s good; sometimes not so good.
This year the 2024 skip season began on May 6th with a fairly decent opening from the northeast down to Florida and Georgia, and even beyond. The event took place from about 5 – 6pm, EDT and went to the top of the FM Band. This event was followed by another on May 8th from 6 – 8on PDT, which went to the top of the band but this time it was from the Pacific Northwest southward. May 13th featured FM Es from South Florida to Colombia around 10am EDT. Then on May 14th, DXers in the northwest found overnight skip from the south and VO1FOG in Newfoundland had 20 minutes of afternoon Es from the Azores on FM on the same day. And on May 16th FM DXers in Oklahoma and Southern California saw Es from roughly 9:30pm to 12:30am PDT. This event was followed by more skip for southern DXers from Mexico. May 25-26 brought more FM Es to DXers in Southern California, Oregon and Washington.
May turned out to be a poor month for skip in North America, and early June seems to also be a disappointment.