Moving from Seattle to Charlotte

[Weldakota]

Afternoon, all!

My girlfriend and I are planning on relocating from Seattle to Charlotte, leaving on the 23rd of October, 2016. Yes, that's in a week and 3 days. Got a lot to get done in the meantime! I was wondering if anybody had some insight or resources to use in regards to weather conditions for the passes. From what I've seen, the roads seem to be okay so far (although we all know that can change in an instant), but I'm having a hell of a time figuring out what all of the different passes will be that we will be crossing over so I can look at the weather forecasts. I will be driving a moving truck with a car on a trailer and she will be driving either her AWD Suzuki or my FWD VW GTI, depending on what she chooses. Given that I'm driving an unfamiliar truck, I'd like to know ahead of time what we're getting into and plan the trip around any nasty weather. I will continue my searches in the meantime, but have had no luck thus far. And we are no strangers to long road trips. We drove (along with my sister's family) from Seattle to Minnesota, to Dallas, to Moab, to the Grand Canyon, to LA and back to Seattle in a 3 week span, with a lot of sight-seeing and multi-day stays. So doing the trip in 4-5 days shouldn't be an issue.


Thanks for any and all input!

[AZBuck]

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

Winter weather, and how to 'beat' it is beginning to become a major topic as people plan trips in the upcoming one to six month window. I laid out the major rationale(s) for picking a cross-country winter route in this recent post, so have a look at that first. The thing is, trying to guess the weather ten days in advance is pointless. No forecast is going to be even remotely useable until just a day or two beforehand. And even then, given your basic route, if snow were forecast for any passes along that route, I'd still take the shortest possible route. You would very likely spend more time driving around any snow than you would just waiting for the roads to be cleared. Then there's the fact that any longer route will cost more, particularly with you gas-guzzling convoy, and leave you subjected to the elements for that additional time.

Under the best of conditions (in a family sedan with perfect weather) you might be able to complete this trip in five days. With your slower rigs assume six, and leave a seventh to sit out any weather you're uncomfortable driving in. One advantage you have driving in the fall/winter is that you will very rarely see a 'No Vacancy' sign, so you can feel free to travel without reservations, stopping whenever the weather, darkness, or fatigue call for it, rather than having to press on regardless just to save some penalty for failing to check in where you thought you'd be that night.

AZBuck