Seen for the first time in April: Tennessee, D.C., Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, New Mexico, and Texas.

I very possibly spotted Texas earlier in the month, and maybe earlier in the year, but Texas is one of those plates I see often enough that I might have thought I had it already when I saw it for the first time.

2022 was off to a slow start, with ZERO sightings in February, but it’s starting to catch up. Last year I’d seen 36 plates by the end of April, and in 2020 it was 35. This year it’s 30, but 8 is a very good haul for April. In 2021 it was 4 and in 2020 only 2, but in those years February sightings were 10 and 6, respectively, so I’m not holding it against April.

What’s unusual about this map is how solid the Southwest is this early in the year. Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Oklahoma tend to be late arrivals, and in 2020 Utah and Oklahoma didn’t show up at all. In 2021 the eastern half of the country was almost all present and accounted for — only Tennessee, West Virginia (surprise, surprise), and Delaware were missing. This year? All four states south of Minnesota are still blank, and there are plenty of other holes in the eastern Midwest and South.