Driving cross country week of Jan 11 from Brooklyn NY to Portland OR w/2 cats. Help

It's a shame you had such a tough trip, but if you read back through your own thread [and many others] you will note that the advice given is usually based on the fact that the weather is unpredictable and there is no one 'best' route to avoid winter weather and that driving in the middle of winter will always run the risk of experiencing winter storms and that the best way to deal with this is to keep up to date with the latest forecasts from the road, which is what you accepted you would have to do in your earlier post.

Thanks for dropping in and sharing your own personal [and not so pleasant] experience, but right at the start of your report you used the term "unprecedented weather," and this can happen just about anywhere. I 90 is a much travelled main route, used by millions of motorists year round so for anyone looking in, I would advise that you check up to date road and weather conditions and then decide the best course of action.

While it's clear you had a harrowing trip, I can assure you I-80 was no day at the beach on Saturday the 8th of January, as on that day I departed Park City, UT at 0300 hrs to beat the front. Even before the front it was very dicey.

When the systems come through every few days like they sometimes do, none of the XC routes work perfectly.

Do I understand from your post you were traveling at night for much of your trip? That might be part of your problem.

Better luck next time.

Foy

The reason I-90 was recommended over I-80 in adverse conditions is this - I-80 through southern Wyoming can make I-90 look like a day on the beach - it climbs to 7000' or so for quite a distance, and it is VERY prone to more than just black ice - it gets VERY windy up there leading to whiteouts that actually require them to close the road.

If it had been me, I would have taken the extra miles and go down to I-40. It may go up to 6800' elevation, but not for a long period of time.

But weather, as someone just suggested, is unpredictable. When I had to go from Missouri to California at the end of one December, I kept an eye on The Weather Channel. We left a day sooner than we figured we were going to, because a storm was blowing in. As a result, that darned storm chased us across I-40 to Flagstaff and then when we went down I-17 to catch I-10 and I-8, we were pleased to be out of it.


Donna

If you have a hand-held CB radio with the NOAA radio channels, you'll always know about the local weather.

Mark