Champaign, Illinois to Hanford, California

Let’s do an Election Day forecast, shall we? In the parlance of politics, we’ll head from one blue state to another, but we’ll travel through some red states along the way. It will take 4 days, or about as long as it will take to count all the votes, to cover 2107 miles. The fourth day will be slightly shorter than the first three, with those first three days concluding after 544 miles of driving at around 68mph. Most cars can stream audio now, so maybe avoid the AM radio and just enjoy the open road for this trip.

DAY ONE (Wednesday)

Champaign, Illinois

As the jet has drifted back a bit to the north, things have started to warm up for the middle of the country, and our drive on Wednesday can likely be done with the windows down if the car gets too stuffy. There won’t be much weather to remark on, save for breezes that could gust to 15mph at times. Noting treacherous. We’ll arrive in suburban Tulsa for the night.

DAY TWO (Thursday)
Thursday will be similar to Wednesday, though with a diminished chance of a prevailing wind. We will drive through central and western Oklahoma, still cleaning up after a calamitous ice storm, and pass through the Texas Panhandle into New Mexico under sunny skies. We will stop at the San Ignacio exit west of Santa Rosa and completely be out of touch with the rest of civilization.

DAY THREE (Friday)
As we approach California, we will do it through the desertified parts of the Southwest. New Mexico and Arizona will remain clear and dry, but a system moving into the West Coast will stir some winds inland. Watch for tumbleweeds in this part of the world. The drive will end at Silver Spring Road between Kingman and Seligman in Arizona.

DAY FOUR (Saturday)
As is often the cast, the feature moving into the West Coast will lose a lot of structure as it gets into the mountains, but that doesn’t mean it will be completely obliterated. In fact, well defined fronts will still exist, including a cold front we will drive though in southern California. That’s not to say it will be particularly rainy, if at all, as the frontal passage will be between Barstow and Mojave, right in the heart of the desert. When we descend into the central Valley at Bakersfield, we’ll probably get into some soupy overcast with drizzle. Expect that right on down to Hanford. Strange, right? The only part of the trip with rain will be the part in California.

Hanford, California By Armona at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17978087