Salt Lake City, Utah to Gainesville, Florida
Today we travel from Salt Lake City to Gainesville. Well, it'll take four days but if the Utes and Gators were ever to play a high-stakes football game, at least the fan base would know where to travel! This trip will cover 2,207 miles over 4 days. So let's all hop into the minivan and travel to the Sunshine State!
DAY ONE
It'll be a somewhat cloudy start to the day in Salt Lake City, as some remements of overnight monsoonal showers and thunderstorms lift northwards over the region. While no showers are expected in the area as we head eastward on I-80 into Wyoming. The sun should break out fully as the morning progresses and the land heats up, but as with the typical monsoon routine, thunderstorms should start blowing up around midday. The tail end of a cold front that's pushing through the Northern Plains will be the focus of showers and thunderstorm activity, most of which should stay out over the Dakotas and over Northern WY. Scattered thunderstorms are quite possible as we roll through Laramie towards Cheyenne, and a few should continue to hang around the region as evening approaches and we continue on into Western Nebraska towards Sidney, our first stop of the night. No severe storms are expected today, they should all stay well off to the north and east of today's leg.
DAY TWO
As the tail end of the cold front pulls away from the Upper Midwest and high pressure starts to build in, it should be a fairly nice start to the day as our trip along I-80 continues on its' merry way. The base of the high pressure will continue to push down over NE and Western IA, keeping partly cloudy skies overhead as we roll through Kearney and Grand Island by early afternoon. Overall, it should be a rather pleasant day through and through as we turn southward and head into Kansas City, our stop for the second night.
DAY THREE
The main dome of high pressure will continue eastward overnight into the Western Great Lakes, with the base of it pushing down into the Mid-MS Valley. With another system developing over the Northern Plains, a weak boundary will set up from southeast MO northwestward into the Dakotas. The start of the day will be nice, with us starting our way over on I-70 towards St. Louis. Clouds will build through the late-morning hours as a few thunderstorms attempt to develop over the region, with better chances as we make our way along I-24 to kick off the afternoon past Mt. Vernon, IL. The afternoon will continue to get a bit drearier though, as numerous showers and thunderstorms are expected to ignite over western KY and TN into the early evening hours. The windshield wipers should have gotten a pretty good workout by the time we roll into Nashville, our stop for the third night.
DAY FOUR
This area of high pressure has been rather kind to us for the most part the last couple of days, following us along the US and getting our days off to good starts. Today won't be any different either, with it building southward into the TN Valley and Southern Appalachaians while the main center remains over the Central Great Lakes. The cold front mentioned previously will have pushed off the Eastern Seaboard mostly, but the tail end of it will have shifted to southeast GA/FL Panhandle and westward along the Gulf Coast. This axis will be the main area for showers and thunderstorms, which we won't get to until well in the afternoon after making our way though Chattanooga by mid-morning and Atlanta by midday. Once we get south of Macon is where we'll start to see increasing clouds and a few scattered storms, which we'll have to dodge for the remainder of the day as we pull into Gainesville. Time to do the Gator Chomp!
