Best Weather Months to drive CA to GA?

[Travelcafe]

Greetings! Well, we are an older couple moving from N.California to our new home in N.Georgia (near Atlanta). The move may take 2 or 3 round trips, carrying some possessions each time in our newer Toyota V6 truck. Our first driving trip CA to GA will commence beginning of October 2018. We are planning the Southern route across, mostly on HWY.40, then veering off it at Memphis and direct to N.GA. The trip should take about 5 days CA-GA. Online weather info: "Tornado Season. ... In southern states, peak tornado occurrence is March through May. The 2017-18 United States winter storm season was an active season that featured 24 named storms. The season started on November 1, 2017 and ended on April 30, 2018." Our question, in this forum, is to ask what the most recommended months of travel are for the 2 to 3 round trips, safest across the US, that we need to take. October weather should be fine going across. For those of you who have traveled this route during the Winter months, what likely storm months should we definitely avoid? We would mostly want to avoid snow driving which we are not experienced with, and tornadoes, too! We'll just focus on going the Southern route, through all the Southern states. After the first trip across early October, it would be optional to do the second trip in Mid-November 2018 or to do the second trip across around Feb/March/April 2019. In your experience, what would you recommend: Second trip mid-November 2018 or wait until Feb or March or April 2019? Thanks so much for sharing your expertise and advice, so we don't get ourselves into trouble on our cross-country road trips! Any and all input would be greatly appreciated!

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

When you talk about best weather months you're really not talking about weather, you're talking about climate, and climate really isn't that important when talking about planning a trip. Climate is about general trends and patterns, but when you're traveling, what's really important is the weather - as in the specific forecasts for the specific days of travel.

The reality is that every time of year has some kinds of weather risk. In the spring and summer, you've got tornado season, in fall you've got hurricane season (even away from the coast, storms can bring severe storms and flooding), and in the winter you've got snow and ice season. (and BTW, "named winter storms" is a completely made up idea created by the weather channel to increase ratings - something that makes most meteorologists cringe).

And even all of those things really don't matter all that much. Tornadoes can and do hit at any time of year - including winter - but the area a tornado impacts is incredibly small. Even the largest storms only impact an area of a few square miles, and the odds of you being impacted one while driving across country on any given 5 day stretch is astronomically small. Even winter storms aren't something that are very likely to impact a trip - while a snow or ice storm typically impacts a much larger area and can certainly cause problems for few days, out of the entire winter, you're still talking about only a handful of days each year where there are problems and the vast majority of days are completely clear or see such small amounts of snow that it doesn't significantly impact travel.

So all of that is to say, instead of trying to find the perfect month to travel, go whenever you can or want, and pay more attention to specific forecasts of the days you'll be on the road. If it looks like there will be a storm in your path on the specific days you'll be on the road, then adjust, either detouring to avoid the weather or delaying your plans for a day or two and wait for the storm to pass. That's far more likely too keep you safe and out of problems then trying to guess which month will be best and assuming that if you travel in that month that things will be perfectly fine.