Tracking Weather on the Road: The Apps, Habits & Hard Lessons Every RVer Needs

Hey guys, you're back at Learn to RV the podcast. We are here today, and I am Jennifer, and that is Tasha. And we're here today and we're gonna talk some about some things on the road that might impact you. I think everybody gets impacted by this one, don't you?

Yeah, I I say yes. No matter where you are in the country or in the world, you are impacted.

Okay. So how do you track weather when you're on the road and why does it matter more than you think it does? That's today's episode of Learn to RV the podcast. So I mean because we live in a tin can. Right. So I mean, when you live on the road, whether it's full-time, part-time, or just going out for a weekend trip, I mean, weather isn't just something to check. Like it could be, but you should be tracking weather. So we're gonna talk about all the ways to do that in this episode. And there are a lot of them. And so there's some maybe some things that maybe you haven't even considered, what apps we rely on, and you know, the real life lessons that we have learned over the years in weather conditions and whether or not you're comfortable in those situations. So whether you're just on the road for the weekend or you're a full-time RVer like me or Tasha, this episode is gonna give you all the tools that you could ever possibly need to plan smarter and avoid kind of weather surprises that you might find on the road. Now, that doesn't mean you won't have weather surprises, it just means that you'll know how to navigate them a little better. Absolutely. So I'm gonna give you a tough one to start with. So this is the quiz, ready? Do you know what an AQ AQI is? No. Although I feel like I know it, but no. So that's actually something called air quality index. And so it's kind of a scale that's out there that tells you how clean or polluted the air that you're in is and how that can affect your health. So if you're spending time outdoors, why would it be important to know the AQI?

Well, because if you have any sort of allergies or anything like that, it can affect your breathing, it can affect the uptick of your allergies, but also it can actually cause you to have other health issues that maybe you're you're not even commonly used to having. So yeah, maybe you've got allergies and that's something, but maybe also you have asthma or maybe you don't have asthma, certain air quality index or certain things that cause that air quality index to raise can actually cause a person to have breathing issues that they normally don't have. Absolutely.

So some sensitive groups of people for this one are often kids, older adults, or anyone with asthma or allergies, you can feel the effects of a poor AQI that much faster. The other thing that it makes you very aware of is things like wildfire smoke. And so if you've ever been anywhere near a fire, that's the AQI. There's also smog to keep in mind when you're doing that. And so there's different, so there's a simple version of AQI. And so if it's green in the world, you know, it means go enjoy the outdoors. But if it's like dark red, it's hazardous. So you want to avoid outdoor exposure in those situations. Smoke can move weather systems faster. And we're gonna hop into wildfires in just a little bit. But having been someone that lived in the desert and had smoke like in the air on a regular basis during wildfire season, it is something that you want to be mindful of, especially if you're, you know, traveling in an RV. And your pets are also gonna feel some of that as well as you're traveling.

With the wildfires, one thing to keep in mind is that just because you don't live near them or you're not traveling near them, that doesn't mean that that smoke is not going to affect the space that you are in. It's always really good to keep an eye on the air quality index just as a rule of thumb. I remember we were traveling during the wildfires that were hitting in Canada, and I think we were in South Carolina, and the smoke had carried all the way from Canada down to where we were, and the air quality index was very, very, very high. And so we actually took a couple days and only did indoor activities because it was so high where we were. So just know that that can carry much further than what you think it can. It's like the the old 80s song voices carry, so does smoke and smog.

So check your air quality index. Well, I think that today's episode is something that everybody thinks about, but sometimes not until they're driving through it. And so, like, do you track the weather on your travel days?

We do, and we are very particular about that. If we see that there's like a tornado watch anywhere in the vicinity, we will completely change our travel trajectory. We're just very particular. We don't want to take any risks like that. And we use a lot of different apps and we watch a lot of different online meteorologists just to get a feel of what different people have to say.

Yeah. So, I mean, we're gonna hop into those apps next, actually, and kind of go through each one. And if I miss one that you use, please feel free to hop in and talk about it. So, you know, Frank would tell you that he will use accu weather for the minute up-to-date weather. And so when he's on a roof, he's gonna start with accu weather because that gives him real time. Like, this is what's going to happen in 15 minutes. And it's usually pretty darn close these days. Tracking weather is more than just that. Like, if you've got hail or high winds, you know, that can impact everything about your travel day. So just recently we were driving up from Florida to Perry, Georgia to go to the FRVA rally, and we got caught in a nasty storm, like where the water was coming in sideways and it was just, you know, it was hitting the windshield so fast and so hard that it like in such big drops that you know you almost had to pull over to the side of the road. Don't be afraid to do that. Like, it's okay to totally do that. You know, we were getting those tornado warnings and watches on our phones as we were driving through. And, you know, the wind wasn't gusting at that point, but you know, you have to make a decision in those moments too, because tornadoes are one of those things that, you know, you'd almost rather be ahead of it. Stella has something to say.

Stella, Stella's very alarmed. Not about weather, but about the hurricane that is Matthew Martin that just came in the front door with a whole lot of dog food. I love it. It's still in the truck. It wasn't even the dog food. She's just so excited that he's home.

So another keeps going. Another great app is um windy.com. We actually learned about Wendy from balloon pilots several years ago. Actually, like a long time ago now. And so knowing the wind gusts above and below and you know, on the ground, what that weather looks like. And there's nothing quite like driving across I-10 and seeing a wall of brown coming at you and knowing that in a few minutes you're not going to be able to see the tractor trailer in front of you. And so, in those situations, you know, I always talk about slowing down, taking the moment. And we actually did that a couple of years ago as we were driving across the country. We got off at the exit and we stayed 48 hours, well, not quite 48 hours, but a whole day because this winds were 60 miles an hour and it was a brownout. And so knowing when to find those, I'm gonna hop into one that's not an app, and it's a newer one to us. So there's a gentleman who's uh owns a business called rvweather.com, and that will actually help you like plan your whole route and tell you what the weather's gonna be like on your route. And in fact, we're gonna have them on for a beyond the brand series coming up really soon where he can explain that so much better than I do. We use it for a lot of you know, the installs that we do to give us real-time ideas of what that looks like for that. Have you used RV weather at all yet?

We have not, but we're weirdos that talk to people about four times before we commit to trying something. And so I think that we have literally spoken to them at four rallies in a row, gotten really excited about it, and then have just not pulled the plug yet. But yeah, I I have a feeling by the time we get to the end of Beyond a Brand, it will be downloaded and on all of the things in the Martin household.

All right. So Weather Underground is kind of a great place to get it, your information. And I go back to there was a hurricane coming into Texas one year, and we had some friends that they're just weather like nerds, and so they're texting us and they're saying, Hey, you gotta get out of there. This this it was the year that um the big storm hit Houston, and so we literally left and the thousand trails that was in Lake Conroe was there was no way out of the park, and the power was off for like five or six days, and so we left because you know, our friend said, Hey, you've got to get out of there, but he was tracking on weather underground, so it's like almost like hyper local data with le weather underground from personal weather stations, so it's kind of like you know, people in their backyards are reporting the weather. I don't know how else to explain it.

Do you use NOAA at all? We have, and I used it a lot when we lived in Arkansas just because we lived in um the like the bank of the Ozark Mountains. I'm gonna use the term mountains very loosely, as someone who's married to someone who grew up in Colorado where the Rocky Mountains are. We lived in the bank of the Ozark Mountains. And that's I mean, they're mountains if you've never experienced the right, right? It's beautiful there. It's it's very pretty, but it's also the weather is very like you just don't know what you're gonna get. And you literally will turn on the news and one weatherman will say something, and another weatherman will say something, and you just don't know what to trust. The weather report changes every 35 to 40 seconds. So I actually feel like I used it more when I lived in the sticks and bricks than I have since we've gone on the road. Um, because our weather resources in Arkansas felt less reliable than our weather resources in an RV have been. So it makes sense.

This is my go-to. This is kind of a fun one. So this is my, and I'm holding up my phone. This is my weather bug app. And so um I actually never used weatherbug until we work camped. And weather bug actually has very um accurate strike distance for your lightning strikes. And so that was what we would use for like when we had kids at the pool or something and we had to get them to come out, and so we would use weatherbug for that one. And so weatherbug is actually the one that I keep on my phone all the time, other than the other ones, but that's the one that I keep actively checking on a regular basis, especially because right now we're in Texas and those storms can be a very real thing.

We I'm gonna throw out what we use, if I can find it on my phone really fast, because I cannot remember what it's called, but I can tell you that it is from a gentleman who has a YouTube channel. And if I can't find the app on my phone because my app is insane, or like my my app page is a little messy, it looks like my desktop and my internet tabs on a regular basis. There's too many windows, there's too many apps. Ryan Hall, y'all online is like our go-to. The second that we hear. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Did you say Ryan Hall y'all? Yes, Ryan Hall y'all. He is a gentleman who does meteorology out of Kentucky. He and his team do nationwide meteorology reports, and they when an area gets hit by a large storm, they will go in, they have um big rig and they'll go in and take like resources into the area as like a you know, hey, you just got hit. Here's some food, here's some diapers, here's some whatever. They they're pretty awesome. We love them. He's also hilarious. But the website is Ryan Hall, y'all on YouTube, and he does he did also just in the last year, I think, launch an app on the phone that I cannot find at the moment that I think Matt is looking for so that he can show me. It is called Weatherwise showed me. Yes, and his stuff is very, very reliable. When some of the radar stuff and everything started getting a little iffy, if you will. Like last year or so, there was just like some budget cuts and some of the radars went down, and then it was like, what are we doing with this? And where's the information coming from? He was just a very, very good resource um because he he was just, I don't know, he's very smart. And so he was calling things and he he was very good about look, they haven't called this yet, but I know they're going to. So you should take cover now. You should do what you need to do to be prepared. And it was like nine times out of ten, if he told people to take cover, there was an active threat that hit right within 20 minutes of him saying you should take cover. So um, yeah, we like him a lot. He's very, very, very good.

Um well, and I mean that brings up the whole point of, you know, traveling, you know, through tornadoes, you know, through tornado season. A couple years ago, we were actually leaving Texas and headed to Florida. And I will probably never forget that day because Frank was in the rig with Hezekiah that day and he was ahead of us, and I lost sight of him. And so we're we called it chasing in the minivan, but you know, so we're we're riding in the minivan behind him, and the winds pick up and the trees are swirling like in a circular pattern. And you know, I lived in Kentucky for three years in Fort Knox. I know what torn I always tell people I would rather live through a hurricane because I can outrun it and I know what's coming than be anywhere near a tornado. But that day I'm pretty sure we drove right through it because the hail started, and so I pulled in next to a convenience store very quickly and put like the van just as close as I could to this brick convenience store. And Frank just kept driving. And, you know, as soon as I could see the light and we could, you know, get out and the hail stopped, we started driving again. And hail's a whole nother thing. But you know, if you've got hail, there's a good chance you've got a tornado near you. And so kept going, and we just we probably drove right through it. This is not what I would advise you to do, but at the same time, we were very close to whatever it was. I think it hit like 12 miles as the crow flies from where we were that day. So, and we didn't see that until we were in Louisiana that night. We stopped in Louisiana, and half the park when we got up the next morning was out of power because half the trees were down because a tornado came through that park. So you have to be mindful of it. And one of the things about you know, weather in general and campgrounds is campgrounds often get hit in the news, and it's because they're on the outskirts of town, and so they're an easy target. So you just need to be mindful of it and have a way to track all of that.

Yeah. So all that being said, you know what? I do have to say my favorite app ever is Jennifer Scalachi. That has been my favorite app. About three years ago, we were on our way to this beautiful place named Lake Havasu. We are traveling across the country, Matt and I are asleep, and I get this phone call, and Jen is like, Natasha, the snow, it is a coming. And we're in Texas, and I'm like, There's no way, there's no snow. And she's like, No, I promise you, there is snow that is going to hit you. It is going to be there within the hour. We got up, we got everything ready, we got on the road, we hit the road, and they got so much snow. If we had stayed, we never would have made it to bash. And also, but after that, after that, we we took off and we started going, and that was the first time that I ever experienced a like dirt tornado brownout windstorm thing. There's a name for it. Do you know what the name is?

Come on, you're the copywriter. It's called a huboob.

Haboob. That sounds like like a child's squishy toy.

Like so H A B O O B. It's a haboob. It's actually a very common desert problem. So it's a sandstorm, especially so it's like a big wall of dust, and it's common in desert regions like in Arizona, in New Mexico, West Texas, and that's where we hit it. We were actually driving on the I-10 in West Texas when we hit one of those, and literally we hit the wall and you could feel everything shift. And you should not stay on the road in a haboob. There's a lot of reasons why. One, you can't see the car in front of you. Two, the guy behind you can't see you either. And three, the side winds can cause some major damage. So the dust can get into your into your engine and your air filters, flying debris would become a hazard, roads can shut down with no warning. And then, of course, then there's always the breathing issues that you can have, depending on where you are, what kind of allergens are in that dust coming at you. So if you see one coming, the recommendation would be to stop if possible, or to get to a safe location and ride out the storm. Like we ended up spending two nights in I don't even remember what town it was. All I know it was just so dusty, we never walked outside. The poor dogs, we'd go outside, take them outside, and run back in. We pulled off at a gas station.

The wind had started to pick up, the brown had started to pick up, if you will, and we there was a gas station up ahead, and we were like, we can make it. So we got up there and we literally got up and stopped the truck right as it really picked up. And it got so strong, we didn't even we weren't even able to get out of the truck. Yeah, we just sat in the truck through it. But I at one point literally thought that the wind was just gonna knock our whole rig over. Like it, we were not parked the right direction. Uh so that would be my other thing. It's also kind of like don't park in the way of the wind stream.

Like in a situation like that, we actually had we lived in the desert for a bunch of years while Frank was active duty. And one of the things we would experience is similar sandstorms, like they didn't have like rainstorms like it, but brown we called them brownouts. That's what would happen. And we actually had one whole one of our vehicles, one of the headlights got peppered with the sand and it made it cloudy. And so we had to replace the whole light fixture because that was that was the angle that the car was sitting in. And so you don't realize the type of damage that you can be sitting in in those situations. So some things I tell people to do is one, if you can, number one, first of all, get off the road. If you have to sit it out in your car, just be prepared. That could take a while. Like it just be smart about it. Two, if you can find an RV park that you can pull into for the night, just plant it for the night. The other thing is if the winds are substantial, filling your tanks is very helpful when you pull in. So that's what we did in West Texas that night. We knew we were going to get 60 hour, 60 mile an hour sustained winds throughout the night. And so we literally just filled the water tank and said, hey, this is extra weight. And then the next morning you have to drain it all off before you leave. We ended up staying there was like 36 hours, a full day in between because the winds were just so significant that you know you have to be smart about it. And so we stayed hooked to our camper with our truck in that situation. But the other thing is you want you want to try and avoid like running your AC because that intake is gonna bring in all those allergens too. So while that's not weather, you can't really outrun a sandstorm any more than you can outrun a tornado.

Yeah. So no, I would call that weather just caused by wind, right?

Yeah. And so you can't outdrive them either. So I mean, I tell people not to try that, you know, and and then you know, having an alternate plan. You know, if you have a hard set date, I always tell people plan for a couple extra days just because you never know what you're gonna run into and you can't control the weather. I mean, we run a nationwide RV roofing company and we can't control the weather. So I don't mean I don't know how anybody can. All right, so let's talk about flooding. Have you ever been anywhere where there's been flooding?

Not in my RV knock on wood.

So you've been good at avoiding it. Yes. So there is a park that I will never go back to, like ever go back to. And if Stephanie's listening right now, she's gonna know exactly which park it was. So we were up in California in the Delta, so that's kind of like between San Francisco and Sacramento. And there was this RV park that was set down and it went down at like, I don't know, a 45 degree angle to drive down into the park. And it rained, and the next morning we came out and I stepped out and my ankles had water. Well, it was next to the water, like the waterway, but it was below sea level. My and so I spent a week at this park and we left early, and it's one of the few places I will never go back because every night I woke up having a dream that the water levees had broke and I was underwater in the camper. Oh my gosh. So, but the water like was literally like six, eight inches deep that morning. When we walked out, because the water was just so saturated from the rainstorm. And so it is not a place I'll go back to willingly because of that. But you know, there are campgrounds out there, and I don't even remember the name of the campground. And then when you go to pull out of the park, it was even more fun. So we had the minivan back then. And so I came into the road first and then I backed up and put my hazards on, which you should not do on the road. I'm not telling you to go do this. But Frank was driving a 40-foot or fifth wheel out of this thing. And so, like as you drive out, and you can't see my hands if you're just listening. Literally, there was coming out of the park, there was water, a big, big, big water. And so you literally, if you didn't make that turn, you were bloop in the water. And so I was like, all right, just hit it. He's still got that 45 degree angle to come up out of that thing, the whole back of the camper, you could hear it hit. And I was just like, you know, that feeling. And so yeah. That sound.

Oh. Yeah. Well, you know, but scraping noise that you're just like, everything just bottomed out, and what damage might there be? But there's nothing that you can do about it because it's done.

But so I mean, like most people don't even think about how a flood or amount of rain can impact the campgrounds. You know, a lot of times when we get to places, we'll walk the campsite before we put the truck in it because we want to make sure we can get it out. Our first year on the road, when Florida rains, there's parts of Florida that just flood. Yeah. Because the water's, I mean, the ground's just so saturated. And that's true in the desert too. Like the sand just doesn't absorb the water. So different problems, same problem, but it's still a problem. And so a lot of campgrounds don't tell you that if you get stuck, that's your problem.

Yeah.

So you need to be aware of how to get in and out of things like that. So I mean, knowing kind of the layers of, you know, tracking that weather, understanding the storm patterns, understanding that if you're in Florida in the summertime, midday, chances are you're gonna have a pretty significant rainstorm every day for 20 to 25 minutes. And then the sun humidity. Enough humidity to feel like you got rained on. And then there's spring hail season, which is great for your RV roof. Just kidding. It's terrible for your RV roof. And so, um, and then gusts and stuff like that, you know. So travel early in the day. Winds tend to be lower in the or earlier day hours, you know, and pick up significantly as the temperature of the earth warms up. So build in buffer days when you're traveling. So have days where you can actually have a day that you have to, you know, and and then if you can make it in a place that you wouldn't mind exploring, even if the weather's lousy, you can go to the museum. I mean, this one I feel like you should take. Well, I mean, what is it? Yes, here's one. So when you're on the road, have you ever been to a place with a tornado shelter? Tornado shelters?

Don't even get me started. Listen. So we were at a park. This actually was the exact same park and the exact same trip that we happened to hug the tree with our with our previous RV. So it was just a banger of a of a week, I'm telling you. Um, and storms picked up, and we were told there is a tornado. So basically, like there's a there's a park, there's an RV park that we're staying at, there's a river that crosses on well, let me try this again. There's our R V park, there is a road that you take to get to the RV park, and on the other side of the road, there is a river that kind of runs alongside the road. And on the other side of the river, they have told us that a tornado has been spotted and it is it has confirmed touchdown. So everybody needs to take cover. And I'm like, great, where do we go? Because, you know, we got here, we hugged a tree. That's really all that we've been doing since we got here. And I just don't, you know, I've not associated myself with where anything is at this campground. And they said, go back towards where the shop is. So we grab all of our, you know, our kids, our dog, we're we're taking off cat, we're good to go. We get back there, and the staff are in the store. And I knock on the door because it is locked, and I say, Hello, there is a tornado. Can we please come in? And she says, No, I'm sorry, you cannot, we are closed. And I said, But there is a tornado, can we please come in? And she said, No, I'm sorry, you cannot come in here. This is the store, and there's money in here. And I said, Well, where am I supposed to take my family then? Because there's a tornado and it's on the ground, and we were told this is where we should go. And she said, Well, there's an arcade in the back if you'd like to go back there. So we went around to the arcade that did not feel like a tornado shelter. And so we ended up leaving there and going to one of the bathrooms and just all of us going into the bathroom and and hanging out there until the storm had cleared. But yeah, I I've never been so dumbfounded than to be told by staff that where they had hunkered down for the tornado shelter was not where we could hunker down for a tornado shelter because there was money inside. So we basically had to fend for ourselves. But also, I will never ever ever not know where the tornado shelters are ever again. As a rule of thumb, if you're looking for a tornado shelter, if it's underground, that's better than above ground. Um, if it is above ground, you want to stay away from windows, you want to stay away from doors, you would really like for it to be a solidly built structure. So we're talking like really thick brick. So a lot of the bathrooms that you see at campgrounds typically are going to be good standard buildings to be in. That's why that's where we ended up going. If it's um a building that is, you know, some of the buildings that you see, like for um recreation halls or things like that, where they're just made out of wood and it's, you know, or maybe it's like an open-air space for gatherings, that's not going to do you any good. Just taking cover. We did a lot. I mean, I grew up in Missouri, so we did a lot of tornado drills, getting down in the hallway of our schools, like on our knees with our hands over our heads to protect it from any debris. I remember one time when I was a kid, there was a tornado, and my mom had us under chairs, under a table, laying down on the ground so that the table and the chairs could protect us. Like, so, you know, the big rule of thumb is like, don't be somewhere where glass can fall on you. Try and protect your head from falling debris. During the Joplin tornado, our house, the most interior room that we had was the closet and mine in Matt's bedroom. So we literally took our kids and our cat Edward in his cat carrier, and we got in the closet and we put pillows all the way around us and we put the baby beds on top of our heads. So, you know, interesting. Just protect your heads, you know. Do what you do.

My first experience with tornadoes was when Frank got stationed in Kentucky. And so we had, you know, a duplex that we were living in, base housing, and the safest place was the bathroom in the center of the building on the ground floor. And so every time there was a tornado warning, I I always get them confused. We would go in there. And that was the sirens were going off, the whole nine. But several years ago, we were at Lake Conroe, a thousand trails, and it seems like we always see tornadoes in this part of Texas. It's great. Anyway, we're here now. So, yay, that being said, just saying, There was a water spout that came off the lake, and we were parked then almost exactly where we're parked right now. We had some inflatable kayaks outside. They were not strapped. They went flying down the road, and Mike and I go chase those flying kayaks because we don't realize how dangerous like life is right there. We're getting pelted with this ice cold rain and it's sharp. And it might have even been slightly haley, but we didn't notice that. We were focused on so we're tying up the kayaks. Mike and I are outside, and then you hear boom, it picked up one side of my camper and dropped it back down.

Yeah.

At which point everybody went, grab an animal, and everybody ran across the street to the bathhouse. And we took the middle shower and we we took the middle showers basically and put ourselves, our dogs, our ferrets, our kids. And then other people started filtering in. And then Millie, of course, is in one of those showers, barking at everybody that's coming in, and we're like, Shh, because you're not supposed to be. But you know, that's one of the things. So identify if there's a safe space where it is. Um, I know like people in Disney will go do the the, they'll go park inside the Disney garage down at Disney Springs for safety because that has some head cover there and they're built solidly. Tornado warning and tornado watch. Um, a watch means that the conditions are favorable and there could be a tornado. A tornado warning, however, that means it's been indicated by radar and to take shirt take shelter immediately. We have been in campgrounds in Iowa where there have been underground shelters. That was exciting. You pull in and you go, There's a campground with 48 RV spots and enough room in there for 12 of us. All right. So but you know, but you make it work. That being said, though, RVs actually have zero protection if you are in a tornado. So make sure you're RV. Yep, get to a safe place and know the signs, like and and have those apps on your phones for that radar. It may seem like it's annoying when you have one of those go off, but in the event that you need it, it's very important.

And I, you know, not to harp on this, but I cannot, I've heard so many people say tornadoes, they're so, you know, they're nothing to worry about. People make such a big deal out of them. Joblin was demolished. We had, I mean, it it was very devastating. But what struck me the most about it was that I had been on my way to the grocery store when the sirens went off. And it was a bright, sunshiny day. Um, and on the radio, they came on the radio and said, We promise you we are not just setting off the sirens. They had someone from the city come on to reassure us that because the sirens got set off all the time. And they were like, No, I know he even said he was like, I know we set off the sirens all the time, but this is for real. Take cover. And I would have been in a building that was no longer standing if I had not turned around and gone home to my family. And it was beautiful outside. I mean, like it was gorgeous outside. And in a second, it just turned. It is so fast how it turns. So if the sirens are going off, if you're getting an alarm, if you're getting that watch signal, take it to heart. Like I know that that's the first step, but just make sure you're ready. Like the second that watch hits, I'm like, does everybody know where their shoes are? Does everybody know where we need to go? Is everybody ready if we need to take shelter? Just be prepared, is the best thing that you can do. But take it seriously. Don't just brush it off, is my my biggest piece of advice.

Well, and one of the things that I want to hop into next is, and I know we're pushing time, but this is such an important topic. So there's two weather patterns that are completely avoidable. It just means that your travel plans may have to change for the season. So one of them is a hurricane. So hurricanes are one of those funny creatures that spin off tornadoes, but the thing is they don't travel more than five or six miles an hour in most cases. And so you can outrun a hurricane. It just means you have to move in from the coast and maybe change all of your plans that are already on the schedule. And so you can do that though. The other one that's like that is fire. And so we lived in the desert for a long time. And I remember there was a fire out in Pioneer Town, and we lived probably about 12 miles as a crow flies from that fire, and our skies were red. Like air quality was terrible. We were trying to figure out do we evacuate horses? You know, if the fire jumps the road, are we safe anymore? Because once it jumps the road, it's a whole different animal. That's true in RV life too. And so out west, you do have a serious fire risk all over the west coast in the summertime. And if a fire is happening, your best bet is to not wait. It's to get out when you know that it's happening. And if it means changing all your plans, you know, it means you're still safe because driving an RV with propane attached to it through an area that's riddled with fire is so dangerous. A lot of people say to me, Well, I don't have a tow vehicle to get out. Take your car, leave the RV, take your pets and go. I mean, like, there's got to be a better plan. And yes, you may not have it when you get back, but at the same time, you'll still have your life. And so please be safe about the choices that you're making. But especially with fire and with, you know, hurricanes, make the smarter choice, even if it means changing your direction. Like, that's the thing. I mean, the year the word of the year for us is pivot. But I mean, I think that's true in those situations too. You know, you just have to be able to, Frank would say semper gumby, which means just be flexible. All right. So building a weather routine. Check your radar in the morning, check your wind speeds, check for storm potential, not just where you are, but where you're headed. And so that's where RV weather is very helpful because you can actually go online and actually track the weather as you're driving into it, which is super helpful to have an anticipation of what's coming the next day. Check for wind gusts. If you're in an area that has uh storms, check for hail, flood watches, smoke and air quality. Um, those are all things you got to keep in mind. And then, you know, like we talked about, high winds are kind of a silent deal breaker travel day thing. And so if the winds are high, you know, maybe just call it and say, I'm not traveling today, because crosswinds can cause dangerous sway. And so we don't travel typically over if the wind is over 30 miles an hour, we're off the road. And so once it gets to the point where it's that, if especially if it's a headwind or a sidewind, because it's not going to be that, it'll be stronger coming across in a gust. Hail, sometimes you can't avoid it, pull underneath uh some kind of bridge or covered area if possible. Flooding, turn around, take a different route. You know, you have to be mindful of those things. Or maybe it means you're rerouting there too. If you know that there's a certain area that's flooding, there are things you can do to avoid it. This was years ago. We're driving through and the water's just creeping up out of the Mississippi because that's what it does there in the spring. But so we're driving near this park, and along this park, everything is underwater, like, and the signs are like sticking out of the water by like you can see just the sign, so it means the first five feet are underwater, and there's this guy that says, like, he's a little circle and he's got like X-d out eyes, and it says, Don't enter, you will die. And I was thinking, wow, that's grim.

But you know, but so true. I mean, that you know, we I in Kansas City where I grew up and I learned to drive, the you know, the Missouri River cuts through there, and when I remember in the 90s, we had some very heavy, heavy storms that threatened flooding. And that was one of the things that I was always taught was that with flooding, especially from rivers or bodies of water, not just like standing water, but you know, bodies of water overflowing, you don't realize how shallow it can be and still wash out your vehicle.

Yeah, and that's especially true in the desert, too. Like, you know, monsoon season is usually August, September time frame, and people will drive through those areas that are considered washes, even though they're still roads, and get swept away. So turn around, don't drown. RVs are heavy, but they're not floodproof. And so no matter how you do it, and sometimes it can happen like where it's overnight. I've had friends that are in the keys that were like they walked outside and that you know it was up to their ankles. And so, you know, it's one of those things you have to be mindful of. If the weather looks dangerous, change the plan, reroute it, wait it out, or just change it altogether. You can outrun a hurricane if you leave early enough, but you should never try to outrun a wildfire. Hurricanes can move slowly, wildfires do not, but everything shifts direction. So knowing how to track those shifts is kind of the critical portion of that. If you see smoke columns, know where they are. I mean, I remember what was it, two years ago when we did your first roof, we were coming up to Livingston that day, and then like that building caught on fire, which had nothing to do with weather, but it backed up traffic forever, and it was, you know, terrible. Changing your route, knowing what to do and when. So, how would you tell people to build their weather routine? What do you think that would look like? And I think it's different for everybody to a certain degree, but I think there's some things that we all should be doing.

Well, I think part of it is just being aware of what the weather is doing, check your forecast, look ahead and not just at the day that you're on, but look ahead and then watch the weather patterns, the ones that are coming your direction or that you see that are notable that you know are being tracked, watch them and see do they change trajectory? Do they, you know, are they still tracking for the route that they're supposed to go? We usually watch if there's like a storm pattern or something that we think maybe we're going to be intersecting with. We'll see, okay, let's watch it for a couple days and see is it keeping time with what they the meteorologists are saying that it's going to do, or is it speeding up? And then, you know, we might leave early based on that, or we might completely change our path depending on that. We also will call around extra two or three days. Exactly. We will call around and say, Hey, we see this weather coming in. If we leave early and come to you guys, do you have a spot for us? Because, you know, your campground may be full. So you may have to find another spot to go to if you're going early. Or we'll go to the office of the place that we're at and say, Hey, we see that this huge storm is coming and it's supposed to be here the day that you know we're supposed to be driving. Do you have a spot that we could stay at? Can we stay where we are for an extra 24 or 36 hours until this passes so that we can stay safe? And I I I I think there's only been one time where we've asked to stay longer that they legitimately did not were not able to accommodate us um and let us stay. Did we have to pay? Yes. But um, you know, I'd rather pay and be safe than get on the road and then intersect with a big storm that it's gonna put my family in jeopardy.

Absolutely. So you know, build a rather routine, whether that's the night before or a couple days before your travel day, check it in the morning and know what's in your path. If there's an app that you use that we haven't mentioned, we'd love to know those because it's always great to add to our list of things that we do. And then, you know, don't forget to, you know, just keep your family safe. Like, you know, whether you're on the road part-time or full-time, weather is out there, it's okay to arrive later or even the next day. Even if your reservation says you're coming in on Thursday, it's okay to come in on Friday. And so sometimes that means, especially if you're a weekend traveler, you know, it means that your whole weekend gets ruined by the rain or the weather. You know, it's better to be ruined by the weather and be safe than it is to have it ruin your RV. The other thing is, you know, hail does do significant damage. Oh, yes, and so if you have a hail storm, one of the things I tell people all the time is document the hail storm, the date, the pictures, the pictures of the hail, because a lot of times those hail storms won't show up for weeks, even months in terms of damage. And so it's something that, you know, you want to have that date on your calendar that it happened. Thunderstorms are a whole new level for me. I don't know about you, but in a house, I was less worried about thunderstorms. But in a camper, they're real pretty if they're like far enough away from me. But you know, if they're right on top of me, the dog barks and you know, it's like Armageddon and you know, battle stations, everyone, and Millie's like, no, no, no, no, no. And it's it's it's exciting in my house during a storm. So, like, you know, especially if you travel with pets and they get nervous during storms, try to be home with them during those storms. And so knowing those weather patterns will tell you whether or not to even go off adventuring that day, or if you need to turn the TV up real loud and just pretend it's not happening.

So that's usually what we do. We we have a method for the madness because Stella gets very, very nervous. So we have to like go lay down with her and let her cuddle and turn on the TV really loud and then like you know, pet her belly and treat her like the princess that she is, and she still shakes like you know, a little quivering leaf, but you know. Eventually the storm calms down and she'll calm down too.

And you know, if it's just regular weather like rain, make sure you have a pair of rain boots for your kids to go out and splash in some puddles because that is part of this lifestyle too. You know, as long as there's no thunder, I've I've swam in the rain on the road. You're already getting wet, so what's a little bit of rain? As long as there's no big storm in on the horizon. If it's hot enough to swim, it's hot enough to swim in the pool in the rain. Make fun of it too. I mean, like, yes, be aware, but I think that having some fun with those adventures is part of the journey. So don't forget to like, subscribe, and follow the Learn to RB podcast. And uh, I guess that wraps up weather this week. What's your weather like, Tasha?

Right now it is a little warmer than it was yesterday. The the inside of the camper got up to 77, and I was like, what is happening? And then I realized, oh, it's nice outside. But I think some rain is actually supposed to come in this weekend, I believe. So I don't know when we travel, right? Yeah, we've got travel on Sunday, so we'll see. All right.

Well, don't forget to track it and let us know how it goes. Anyway, thanks for joining us on Learn to RV the podcast. We appreciate you. We'll see you next week around the campfire and track your weather. Don't forget.