Morgantown, West Virginia to Amarillo, Texas
Today we embark on a 1,378 mile road trip from Morgantown, WV to Amarillo, TX. We'll be taking it easy though, making the trip in three days at a fairly comfortable pace in covering roughly 460 miles a day. And away we go!
DAY ONE
We head out of Morgantown northwards towards Pittsburgh, but we'll make a west on I-70 before we reach the metropolis. A cold front pushing through the region will fire most of its activity off towards the east during the afternoon hours. There is a slight chance of a lingering shower along it during the morning hours as we continue westward, but things will dry and clear out as we continue our way westward into OH. Good weather should greet us for the rest of the day as we push into Indiana, finishing up at Terre-Haute, which is near the IL border.
DAY TWO
Weak high pressure over the area will make for a fairly nice morning with some patchy light fog perhaps breaking up shortly after sunrise. We continue our jaunt down I-70 towards St. Louis. The cold front that moved through the region the previous day will keep the main concentration of shower and storm activity off towards the south over the TN and Lower MS Valleys. A weak disturbance along the tail end of a boundary lifting back over the Central Plains will sprout scattered shower and thunderstorm activity over much of the Plains states. We'll be pulling into Joplin, MO, found near the KS/OK border by the late-afternoon hours while the skies cloud up. Some showers and thunderstorms are possible late evening into the overnight hours, hopefully they don't keep us awake. We only have one more day to go!
DAY THREE
A few straggling showers are possible over the Ozarks during the morning hours as the disturbance shifts northeast and dissipates overnight. The tail end of the cold front continues to camp out over the TN and Lower MS Valleys, keeping the diurnal thunderstorm activity south of our route. Models have been spinning up an area of low pressure along the Gulf Coast and by Wednesday, it could possibly develop into a tropical system as it shifts westward towards LA and far eastern TX. This focus of moisture southeast of our route will keep precip activity fairly isolated as we make our way past Tulsa and Oklahoma City and onto I-40 towards the TX Panhandle. Most of the afternoon and evening activity will be found over the Four Corners region as monsoonal thunderstorms ignite once again over the Rockies. A couple stray thunderstorms might find their way down towards Amarillo by early evening, but we should beat them to the city.
