Less than 10 days before we leave. After ordering snow chains and charge adapters for the car, I feel I have to start planning our trip in more detail. In winter, the weather is always on the front of your mind. With an electric car, certain weather conditions can have a big effect on your range. However, there can also be weather that makes the trip outright dangerous or impossible.

Route January 2016

Our almost 7000km trip will lead us from Victoria BC with BC Ferries to the “main land”, then south on I5 to Fremont, CA, for a Tesla factory tour, then continue on I5 to Los Angeles, from there east on I40 to Oklahoma City, then south on I35 to Houston, east on I10 to Lake City, FL, finally south on I75 to Fort Lauderdale.

The high temperature in Victoria, our most northern location, is around 7ºC and is forecasted to stay like that for 14 days. The high temperature in Fort Lauderdale, our southernmost location, is 27ºC and not going below 20ºC for the next 14 days. So what can go wrong with the weather in between? Sure, there are a few mountain passes to cross, but we have snow chains and the best snow handling car in the world. Just today, I red how a rear wheel drive Model S handles snow.  like in the picture below, then we should have no problems with our all wheel drive Model S. source????

RWD Model S made it through 40cm snow(source: Stig Flem on Facebook)

Alas, the news today talked about severe weather with storms and tornados on our planned route.  So I checked the web for details, and this is what I found:

Cold air fighting warm humid air

Cold freezing air is pushing from New Mexico to the Gulf of Mexico where it is currently really warm and humid.

Severe Storms and Tornados

A large area of storms is the result. Tornados have already killed more the 15 people.

Sever Flooding

A lot of rain fall (more than 75mm) will cause flooding in the warmer areas of the storm front.

Heavy Snow Fall

While the colder areas will have a huge accumulation of snow. More than 60cm through this night.

Blizzards

When giants like this fight, there is bound to be a lot of wind, which causes blizzard white-out conditions. Road closures are certain.

Today it would be much easier to drive from Vancouver to Calgary, which is 2000km north of this severe storm.

I just hope the weather settles down within a few days so we have better driving conditions when we get South.

Rolf