Storage below the snow belt

obgraham wrote:
Most all the Interstates and major Canadian routes are bare surface within a day or two after a snowfall. It's not that far down to say, mid-Indiana where bad weather is the exception. I didn;t even try to de-winterize until I was in a warmer area.

I agree. We use the "live cameras" for every state we cross going to Florida....we leave end of January. This will be our 5th winter.

There are live cameras on interstates at regular intervals for every state; starting about 7 days before our departure, I heavily monitor the weather forecasts, radar and temperature, and scan the interstate road surfaces at about 150 mile intervals. If/when a winter storm hits part of our route close to departure date, I watch the interstate cams very carefully and also the 24-hour snow probability, then, knowing how far south I can drive in say 9 hours, shoot through the northern window of departure. We head straight for the I95, because it is closest to the Atlantic coast, traverses low altitude terrain, and has the least probability of traversing snow events when compared with interstates at higher altitudes further inland. ie. the further inland from the Atlantic you venture in winter, the less the relatively warm Atlantic waters will warm the atmosphere.

The above isn't an absolute guarantee you won't encounter snow or freezing rain, however, in all the past migrations we've done, only once did we have to pull off the I95 earlier than planned. It happened on the Capital beltway; very light freezing rain end of January 2 years ago. But by the next morning, the beltway and 95 were completely bare, and we then shot down to the Carolinas on day 2.

Anyhow, only you can decide what is comfortable. But I would say that leaving Ontario from November 15th to ~end of 1st week of December should put your probability of hitting snow along the I95 or ice on the I95 as far as southern Virginia to approaching nil. And, there is RV storage along the major interstates in the Carolinas; however, this will not guarantee that an ice storm or below freezing weather won't hit those states in December, January or February.

Good luck :)

On edit: we really notice a large change in temperatures when we hit New jersey and Delaware latitudes, on the I95. The January temperatures dramatically climb at these latitudes (but are still below freezing in the 20+F range on average), compared with southern Quebec/Ottawa/Albany, NY corridor's 0F to 15F