Best way to get weather information along the route

WeatherBug app, and I typically zoom out from my current location to view radar, temp, satellite, and various other layers on the map in realtime.

 

Anyone traveling thru Iowa now on thru Tues check the whether.Spose to get real ugly,ice storm and predicting power outages.Snow plow has been going up and down the street salting it.It doesn't look bad right now but sometime after midnight is when it's spose to hit.Other counties are ecspecting a snow storm.So please check the forecast before your travels,

 

I use Weatherbug app on my smartphone. You can use various weather apps or websites on your smartphone if you have one. I like Wunderground.com and accuweather.com. I put less faith in the forecasts and more in the current radar and wind/temps. I'd rather see how the storms are moving now, compared to my route, than hear other drivers tell me what it was like 6 hours ago when they were there and six hours before I get there. I find the weather band radio to next to worthless. It usually does a good job of warning you about 20 of the next 5 storms but only if you know which county you are currently in or where exactly the line 10 miles south southwest of Gorley running to 45 miles west of Snot Junction is located. Even when it's warning about the area where I live and grew up for the last 4-5 decades it references towns I've never ever heard of except on weather radio.

 

And don't just look ahead of yourself for one day. Check the weather at your destination on your delivery day and then work back toward your current location to check the forecast for each day in each area. If the weather is bad between you and your destination, you can route yourself around the bad weather and avoid being shutdown for a day.

 

If you have an internet phone for example,I punch in i90 road conditions,then check for alerts,WSDOT or maybe OR DOT,to check the mountain Passes,most show a camera picture,recent,with chains advised or chains required.Give you an idea of what to expect.

 

If you are a coast to coast OTR driver, you'll probably need to leverage several different web sites and apps. Use an app such as WUnderground and these will allow you to save unlimited favorites (locations) that you can refer to as common POI's that suit your regular lanes. You can view forecast for a future day and also see any winter Wx warning or [future] advisories that may be in effect for that area

Key is to look 3+ days ahead if you're running coast to coast in winter. This allows for diversion early to minimize out-of-route miles. IMO, The easiest 3-7 day winter precipitation accumulation forecast page is
http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/wwd/winter_wx.shtml
It is a US map based general overview and it looks at the next three 24 hour windows and lays out likelihood of x inches of accumulation inside of of any 24 hour window. Any place that has a likelihood of 4+ inches of accumulation in the window you may be traveling that area might be an area of concern.

The key is understanding how and which states that use salt liberally and have large plow fleets makes a huge difference in what you can expect during/following a winter storm. A mild winter storm in Texas is going to take much longer to clear then a strong winter storm in Utah. Also Wyoming has it's own set of realities due to high winds blowing snow around between storms. Note that Wyoming has a text/email notification system you can sign up for that is very customizable. But you have to use their website on a desktop to set this feature up (once you can find the link).

 

I use 3 apps.

I use Weather bug for the local conditions and they have the best radar map. I don't save any locations in it, so it always shows my current location with no distractions. (also makes for good screenshots with no saved locations in the way. I save stuff on Wunderground)

Then I use Wunderground for searching for other places. They have the best forecast display, hourly or 10 day.
It is a nice time based chart that shows temp and precipitation and such in a very easy to read way.

For travel planning, get Weather Route Free (on Android at least)
You punch in start and end locations, and it gives you a weather snippet of each town or location along the way.
You can slide the slider at the bottom to change the leave time, or to see further in the future.

I will use Weather Route to look for trouble areas, and then I can look at them in detail on Wunderground, and keep an eye on them with the Weather bug map.
I also have Weather bug set to display the nearest current temperature on the Notifications bar, (which I generally hate having anything up there lol) so at a glance I can see freezing temps.
I will remove this when the weather warms up probably lol

 

Weather Route Free, example I just looked up:

 

Thanks, I just downloaded it. Very awesome program.

 

it's been awhile since I've been out on the road but Noaa.gov worked good for me, better to have 6x8 on dash display or tablet IMO .