By admin 
If you have a road trip or a long highway haul planned over the next few days, the sky is about to get involved in your travel plans. Forecasters are tracking a multi-day stretch of severe thunderstorms that will sweep across a huge chunk of the country, bringing damaging straight-line winds, large hail, flash flooding and even a few tornadoes to the same interstates millions of drivers use every weekend.
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The first round arrives Friday night, when a band of storms is expected to stretch from northeastern Oklahoma all the way to North Carolina and the Delmarva Peninsula. That line cuts straight across some of the busiest travel corridors in the eastern half of the country, and the main threats are wind gusts strong enough to topple trees onto roadways, hail that can crack windshields and dent body panels, and pockets of fast-rising water that can swamp underpasses and low-lying lanes in minutes.
Over the weekend, the action shifts north and west. A sprawling heat dome parked over the southern states will pump heat and humidity into the northern Plains and Midwest, creating the kind of fuel that long-lived storm complexes love. These clusters can race hundreds of miles in a single night, and in the most extreme cases they can organize into a derecho, a fast-moving wall of damaging wind that behaves a bit like an inland hurricane. For anyone driving across the Dakotas, Minnesota or the upper Mississippi Valley, that means conditions can flip from calm to chaos with very little warning.
The threat does not let up until at least Monday. A few of the strongest storms across the Central states could produce tornadoes, alongside more damaging hail and straight-line winds. Crosswinds from these systems are no joke either, especially for high-profile vehicles like SUVs, pickups towing trailers, motorhomes and semis, all of which can get shoved across a lane in a strong gust.
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So what does that mean behind the wheel? If hail starts falling, the smart move is to find covered parking or pull off under a sturdy structure rather than risk a windshield. If you get caught in a downpour heavy enough to wash out visibility, ease off the gas, turn on your headlights and increase your following distance, because hydroplaning is most likely the moment the rain comes down hardest. And the oldest rule still applies: turn around, don’t drown. It only takes about a foot of moving water to float many cars off the pavement, so never gamble on a flooded road.
It is worth remembering that summer does not have a monopoly on travel-wrecking weather. Just this month, drivers in the Mountain West have been dealing with the opposite extreme, including a wild late-June snow event and warnings about snow burying mountain passes and roads to national parks. Whether it is hail in June or snow in the high country, the lesson for drivers is the same: check the forecast before you leave, keep an emergency kit in the trunk and give yourself permission to wait out the worst of it.
If severe storms are in your area through Monday, the safest plan is the simplest one. Build in extra time, keep an eye on local warnings, and if the sky turns threatening, there is no shame in parking the car and letting the storm pass before you get back on the road.
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