It’s obvious everyone is starting to get restless for the 2020 season, so here’s a thread just for it!
Building on this, CIPS Extended Analog Threat Guidance is signalling troughing in western/central US for the next 1-2 weeks, keeping at least Dixie in the warm sector (surface temp anomaly maps below). There's even some severe weather occurring in some of the analogs in the 6-8 and 9-11 day period (percent of 1 severe report maps also below). While this may seem low, any signal for severe weather at this range this time of year is rare in the guidance, so it's worth keeping an eye on.GFS is hinting at an extended period of a broad belt of vigorous 500mb SW flow east of the Rockies starting in about 5-7 days and continuing through the end of this morning's 12Z run. The kind of pattern that would be awesome in May (or at least have the potential to be awesome, last year was the ultimate example of "the devil's in the details" when it comes to severe local storms forecasting) but even so may yield some early season severe weather, most likely in the Dixie jungles.
If there was ever a time to have lower than normal activity, I'm glad this is it. Also hoping a relatively inactive March and April will transition into a more active May/June. Seems to be (and this has been discussed before, but it bears repeating) that March/April and May/June activity are somewhat negatively correlated - it is rare that both periods are busy or both not busy. So usually, having a quiet early season means a good chance of an active mid-late season (one testimonial example in each direction: 2006 and 2010).CIPS extended analog guidance based on 03/24 00 UTC GEFS shows March closing out and April beginning with cooler and dryer conditions than normal across approximately the eastern 2/3 of the CONUS. Latest ERTAF guidance and discussion also paints a bleak picture for the first part of April.