Road Trip – Weather Blog

Lewiston, Maine to Napa, California

Ryan Henning August 6, 2020August 6, 2020 Leave a comment

Road tripping is sort of en vogue right now, given the potential of coronavirus transmission with air travel, so why not see the country in a week long transnational road trip? It will take us 6 days to get from coast to coast, covering 3200 miles. We’ll average 68mph and nearly 545 miles a day. Right through the center of the country!

DAY ONE (Friday)

Isaias has long departed the Eastern Seaboard, but the remainder of a weak surface trough still lingers in the mid-Atlantic,and is continuing to threaten the area with showers and storms from Long Island to Florida. Inland, those storms are filtering towards the mountains, beginning to rise up with the elevation and raining out at higher terrain. For our purposes, that means a threat of rain as we approach the Catskills. The threat for isolated rain and thunder will linger until about Oneida, with clearing skies returning until we arrive at Batavia, between Buffalo and Rochester, and our destination for the day.

DAY TWO (Saturday)
On the other side of the Appalachians, life is good. High pressure has taken care of the Great Lakes and is doing a good job of suppressing Gulf moisture and shunting systems from the Plains to the north. Not a bad day to drive through Ohio. We’ll end in Hammond, Indiana, in the Chicago region.

DAY THREE (Sunday)
As we move west, the ridge will shift east, opening the Mississippi Valley up to the Gulf’s moisture. The Sunday drive will be soupy. Scattered spots of drizzle might be possible with the rising warm air in Illinois, but it should clear out through Iowa. Unfortunately, the sunny skies and humidity will only be priming the region for strong thunderstorms, of which a few might arrive in eastern Nebraska just as we are passing through Omaha and Lincoln. Severe weather is a strong possibility as we pull off the highway in Milford, just west of Lincoln.

DAY FOUR (Monday)
After a stormy evening in Nebraska, it should improve dramatically as we cross the windswept prairie of Nebraska and enter the windswept hills of Wyoming. Some monsoon thunderstorms may be seen on the horizon over the peaks in Colorado, but our route should be dry. We will end near Walcott, but most of southern Wyoming is all the same, so who knows!

DAY FIVE (Tuesday)
There isn’t going to be too much difference on Tuesday. Generally, the drive will be just fine, but in slopes, there could be a stray thunderstorm associated with the seasonal monsoon. It shouldn’t be an enormous concern, with the largest issue being dust from downdrafts in dry storms west of Salt Lake City. Our day will conclude in Elko, which, yes, does have some casinos. No, you probably shouldn’t go, what with the pandemic and all.

DAY SIX (Wednesday)
The monsoon doesn’t really reach as far west as the Sierras, and we should get on the road before we have to deal with the afternoon storms around Elko. Smooth sailing into Napa, then. Heck, we even get to approach from Sacramento, which is a heck of a lot easier than coming from San Francisco.

Gadsden, Alabama to Reno, Nevada

Ryan Henning July 25, 2020 Leave a comment

Hey gang, we’re almost at the weekend! At Victoria-Weather, we are planning on kicking things off with a 4 day trip out to Reno. We’ll cover 2,337 miles at a pace of 68.7 windswept miles per hour. The last day, which is often the case for us, will be a longer day, with about 550 miles passing by on the first three days. Road travel and camping are the way to live in this age, and perhaps this journey will provide just that opportunity.

DAY ONE (Saturday)

Hey! Who is that in the Gulf of Mexico? Why, it’s Tropical Storm Hanna, already the 8th storm of the season, ready to soak south Texas. What that means for our journey is a reduction in the instability that filters north to our route from Gadsden to Blue Springs Missouri, the Kansas City suburb we intend to rest our heads. Instead of the threat for area showers and storms after noon throughout the day, I think that if we can make it past Hopkinsville, Kentucky by 1pm, we might be storm free all day. Hey, and Kansas City has a lot of spots to stop, including campgrounds. All around a pretty good day.

DAY TWO (Sunday)
A cold front is going to move through the high Plains and Upper Midwest this weekend, and again, Hanna is going to play havoc with the storms’ intentions. Instead of heavy soaking rains, there will only be a few shpwers and storms on Saturday, but as Hanna deteriorates on land, the moisture will return to Nebraska and Iowa. Expect the best chance for thunderstorms to come around Lincoln, but with chances for more activity as far west as North Platte. We’ll reach Sidney, which is an oasis in the Nebraska Panhandle, and call it an ight.

DAY THREE (Monday)
The summer monsoon is something of a moving target. Like, literally, the target moves every day, and truly, guidance isn’t a whole lot of help. Depending on your flavor of choice, you might get some storms in Nevada, or they might show up in Utah. Let’s plan for the worst and hope for the best. It should be dry through Wyoming, at least, even if we see a stray storm in Utah, where we will stop in Magna, on the west side of Salt Lake City.

DAY FOUR (Tuesday)
The way it looks, our long drive on Tuesday will mostly be in the clear, though as the time hits the afternoon, there could be an isolated storm around Elko or Winnemucca. IT would be short lived, however, and we would almost certainly be in good shape when Reno comes to pass. It will be plenty hot though.

Greenville, North Carolina to Fayetteville, North Carolina

Ryan Henning July 18, 2020July 18, 2020 Leave a comment

It’s not a long trip from these two towns in eastern North Carolina. This trip of less than 2 hours will merely be a leisurely Sunday drive (assuming the weather cooperates). We will cover 110 miles at an almost 63mph pace, and be in Fayetteville by lunch time. Let’s see what will happen.

The tail of a continually weakening trough is bringing some showers and thunderstorms to the Tarheel state today, but guidance suggests the activity will be significantly weaker tomorrow morning thanks both to the fact that that trough IS weakening, and that we will be going in the morning, when the heat of the day will be absent. Indeed, this will be a leisurely drive! Stop for ice cream on the way, you have my permission.

Kennewick, Washington to Greenville, North Carolina

Ryan Henning July 14, 2020July 14, 2020 Leave a comment

Are you ready for a lengthy trek cross country? We are heading from the northwesternmost state in the land to the eastern part of North Carolina, and will take us 5 days to make that trip. This is the perfect summer road trip, if you ask me. The mileage will hit 2810 miles, for a pace of about 67mph, with the first 4 days ending after about 535 miles, with a 10 hour day coming on Sunday. Let’s get to North Carolina by the end of the weekend, shall we?

DAY ONE (Wednesday)

Sometimes, in the eastern-US focused weather community, we forget that in the summer, that constant thunderstorm threat we are used to just doesn’t exist for a big part of the early summer. Such is the case this week in the Pacific Northwest. Quiet weather will allow us to take in the scenery from Washington, through Oregon and Idaho until we reach Howell, in the Utah panhandle.

DAY TWO (Thursday)
The seasonal monsoon is preparing to develop in the southern Rockies, and indeed some guidance is pointing towards thunderstorms in the Colorado Rockies. Fortunately, we will not be traversing the Colorado Rockies, instead passing through Wyoming before ending up in Bushnell, in far western Nebraska. Rain is not expected to obscure our day.

DAY THREE (Friday)
Nebraska us a long, arduous state to pass through by car, but if you like driving and identifiable benchmarks, then Nebraska is for you. We’re headed off the road for Nebraska City, then south through Iowa and Missouri, where we will stop in St. Joseph. Nebraska is going to be in fine shape. Lingering humidity will likely lead to morning fog, that I would hope will burn off by the time we reach St. Joseph.

DAY FOUR (Saturday)
A slow moving, lingering trough extending into the Ohio Valley will make things a bit drearier on Saturday. By the time we reach southern Illinois, clouds with a stray sprinkle will become increasingly likely, with a rogue stroke of lightning not out of the questions. This will continue eastward, as we call it a day in Carefree, Indiana, which is west of Louisville.

DAY FIVE (Sunday)
It’s just the time of year, but more wet weather will be possible on either side of the Appalachian range, but with low pressure developing in the Great Lakes, the better chance for rain or even a rogue thunderstorm will come up in eastern Kentucky and before we reach Charleston in West Virginia. There will be a healthy rain shadow in North Carolina, but we are headed far enough east, some oceanic flow will lead to isolated storms along the coast, including in Greenville, as we arrive, exhausted, at the end of our long day, at the end of our long trip.

Longview, Texas to Fargo, North Dakota

Ryan Henning July 10, 2020July 10, 2020 Leave a comment

The Dakotas have been some of the stormiest states in the country lately, and we are on our way there! It’s a pretty straight shot from east Texas to the farthest east portion of North Dakota. The drive is a two day slog, covering 1086 miles at a pace of 64.7mph. Day one will be a hair shorter than day 2, concluding after 518 miles. It’s the weekend!

DAY ONE (Saturday)

The culprit behind some severe weather today in northern Nebreaska is a short little wave on the back side of a broader low in Quebec. Short little waves tend to move very quickly, as will this one, shifting out of the Dakotas towards the western Great Lakes. Through Texas and Oklahoma, expect a more laminar, westerly regime, which will mean hotter, dustier air for our Saturday. As the day concludes, though, some instability in eastern Kansas could lead to a stray rumble of thunder at the tail end of our day. The activity will be scattered in nature while hugging the Missouri border, and we may just as soon be dry all the way to Hoyt, north of Topeka, by the end of the day.

DAY TWO (Sunday)
High pressure will nose in behind the system, bringing some seasonably more favorable temperatures to our drive. Low 80s in the eastern Dakotas instead of the mid 90s. I think we might appreciate that for a bit, especially after leaving Texas. I know the locals like it too. Fargo isn’t so bad in the middle of July.

Oxnard, California to Palm Coast, Florida

Ryan Henning July 5, 2020July 5, 2020 Leave a comment

Happy 4th of July, everyone. The neighborhood fireworks are rocking my residence in celebration. We can celebrate the country by taking a cross country trip, which will be completed in 4 1/2 days, covering 2539 miles. That means our four full days will be consumed by 564 miles, thanks to the 70+mph afforded by these coronavirus emptied interstates.

DAY ONE (Sunday)

The first day of our trek is definitely going to be one that makes us wonder why anyone leaves the southwestern US. Not a cloud will be in the sky, save for one or two rising above the San Bernadino range very early in the day. The sweltering heat of southern Arizona may remind us of the rationale for living somewhere else, though, an our day will end in the outskirts of southeastern Tucson.

DAY TWO (Monday)
There will be some thunderstorms along our route on Monday, that’s one piece of news. The other piece of that news is that those storms will pop up after we’ve made our way through the region. The threat will come around El Paso, but that will fire up in the evening, as we are checking in for the night in Ozona, further to the east.

DAY THREE (Tuesday)
Driving through the San Antonio and Austin areas should be a pretty easy task, but closer to Houston, and perhaps as we pass into Louisiana, things may get a bit dicey iingering showers and storms associated with a lingering disturbance well east of our route (and the United States mainland, actually) and the ever present sea breeze could lead o a stray shower as we watch the show, wrapping things up ion Jennings, Louisiana, between Lake Charles and LAfayette.

DAY FOUR (Wednesday)
The drive along the Gulf Coast will be comfortably familiar for anyone who lives there. Quiet if hot and humid during the day, with an increasing threat for showers and thunderstorms as the instability gets to be too much. So after about 2, probably from Mobile eastward, we’ll have a real threat for showers and storms. Nothing too bad, but something that will definitely be there. We’ll stop in Madison, Florida, with a few hours to go on Thursday.

DAY FIVE (Thursday)
Some low pressure might organize late next week off the Carolina coast, which could provide some focus for thunderstorms in the southeast. IT’s for this reason that I would say thunderstorms might actually pop up in the morning in those last ew hours of our drive, rather than just with the peak heat. By the time we reach Jacksonville at the Atlantic coast, however, I think that storm threat will greatly abate. Stinkin’ hot, though.

Lawton, Oklahoma to Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Ryan Henning May 23, 2020May 23, 2020 Leave a comment

After a couple of short trips, we had a very long trip. Now, we can settle somewhere in the middle, with this 2 1/2 day trip. Storm chasing is still a thing even in these strange times, and I could imagine someone having a successful chase based out of Lawton last night, then wanting to take the 1,446 mile journey home to tell stories about the storms they saw near the Red River. The drive will cover 67.5mph and those first two days will be through after about 540 miles on the highway.

DAY ONE (Sunday)

To say the pattern is turbulent in the center of the country is a bit of an understatement. Successive short waves keep spiraling through the northern Plains, which draw moisture and instability through the central and southern Plains. There isn’t so much forcing that I would suggest there might be a severe weather outbreak on Sunday, but I would be surprised if it didn’t rain somewhere along the way. Light rain will be possible around Lawton as we head out, with a break through Oklahoma City and Tulsa, but there will be increasing chances for pop up thunderstorms by the time we hit the afternoon and Missouri. The best threat will be between Springfield and Rolla, but really, they will be aimless, and the possibility will continue to St. Clair, our destination for night one.

DAY TWO (Monday)
The entire Ohio Valley is going to become increasingly humid and warm. There might be a stray pop up shower or thunderstorm virtually anywhere during our drive from St. Clair, but the threat will naturally rise with the temperature as the day progresses. Still, the most active weather will be reorganizing to our west, so I don’t foresee anything more significant than a localized downpour. and the majority of the day will be warm and dry, but perhaps incredibly humid. Our day concludes in Jacksontown, Ohio, which is to the east of Columbus.

DAY THREE (Tuesday)
For the final day of our trip, we have a little bit better news. The low level moisture associated with all the disorganized action in the center of the country will be unable to penetrate Appalachia, and we are right on the doorstep of Appalachia. The threat for some rain likely won’t stretch further east than Zanesville, and the rest of the drive will be beset by nothing other than scenery and mountainside Americana. Lancaster should be appropriately late-springlike.

Charlottesville, Virginia to Oxnard, California

Ryan Henning May 20, 2020May 20, 2020 Leave a comment

After a couple of road trips that were merely one day long, we’re hitting the big time, with this 5 day trip across the country. We’ll cover 2,604 miles at a pace of 66.8mph, which means the we will cover 534 miles a day for the first four days of the trek, with the last day being a hair shorter. What a terrific way to get a look at the nation’s weather this week.

DAY ONE (Wednesday)

Wouldn’t it be nice if we got off on the right foot, with clear skies and dry roads to set our pace by. Well, it won’t happen. Low pressure hemmed in by the remnants of Arthur will be raining over the central and southern Appalachians. The heaviest will fall from Roanoke to Knoxville, but lighter rain is going to continue west to Nashville, where we will stop on the eastern fringes of town.

DAY TWO (Thursday)
There isn’t a lot going on specifically over the Mississippi Valley for Tuesday, but it will be enjoying the ramifications of some of the activity elsewhere. Streaks of overcast with drizzle will continue through western Tennessee. After a bit of quiet weather in eastern Arkansas, flow will become southerly in response to another area of low pressure in the Canadian high plains. This may trigger a few thunderstorms from Little Rock west into eastern Oklahoma. We’ll make it to the Robert S Kerr Reservoir, where storm coverage would probably just be increasing through the night.

DAY THREE (Friday)
The showers and storms will probably continue through the night in eastern Oklahoma. If we use a mobile radar app, we’ll see a little bit of gumption would have taken us to Oklahoma City, the night before which will be a lot dryer on Friday. Instead, we’ll drive through a few more showers until we get clear air from western Oklahoma to the Texas Panhandle into New Mexico, where we will stop just past Tucumcari.

DAY FOUR (Saturday)
Finally, after being pushed and pulled by features near and far, things are going to look up as we move through the Desert Southwest. New Mexico and Arizona look to be devoid of any troubling features and even the heat will be pretty manageable. The day will end in Ash Fork, Arizona.

DAY FIVE (Sunday)
Come on. You’ve just spent all this time navigating the country, dealing with scattered showers and thunderstorms, and the monotony of I-40 west of the Mississippi. You deserve to coast to the Coast in Oxnard in peace, and you are going to get it. Enjoy Oxnard.

Rochester, New York to Charlottesville, Virginia

Ryan Henning May 18, 2020May 18, 2020 Leave a comment

We have a long one day drive through the mountains of Appalachia. In the spring time, after a bit of rain, I expect a verdant, gorgeous drive through the Finger Lakes and the Appalachians of Pennsylvania and both varieties of Virginia. We’ll cover about 62 miles per hour until we reach our destination 497 miles away.

A fairly amorphous blob of low pressure sits in the Ohio Valley, bringing some serious rainfall just west of the Rockies, however this feature is deteriorating and won’t actually interfere with the first couple of states in our journey. The interesting part, to me anyways, is why the system in the Great Lakes is falling apart. Tropical Storm Arthur, which sits off the mid-Atlantic coast and is cycling in dry air into western New York and Pennsylvania. The precipitation west of the Appalachians will squirt through south of Arthur’s field of influence, and that will lead to some wet roadways as we reach the Hagerstown, Maryland area. Scattered showers and maybe an isolated thunderstorm will be possible for the rest of our drive, but fortunately, much of it is in the shadow of the mountains, and rain won’t be as heavy as it could be, at least not until we turn east from Staunton to Charlottesville. Darn.

Washington DC to Barnstable, Massachusetts

Ryan Henning May 11, 2020May 11, 2020 Leave a comment

This is going to be a an East Coast road trip through a part of the country that probably isn’t keen on travelers right now. Let’s make sure that we mind our P’s and Q’s while trekking through the busiest parts of the country on our full day’s drive,

which will cover 477 miles. Our pace will be 62.2mph, which is probably a little faster than normal, because of everything going on.

Brr! The last coldest shot of spring is moving into the mid-Atlantic tomorrow, and we will drive through those big cities, like Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore with the windows up. The sun will be out, so we won’t need the heat, and by the afternoon, it tends to get warm in the car, but it will be that difficult blend of too hot in the car because of the sun, and too cold to leave the windows down. But at least we will be able to avoid anything more serious than a stiff breeze, and will end up in Barnstable, which is nice.