Why is 80m QSO from CEE (OK etc.) to W6,W7 - CA,WA,OR actually easier over the long path? (Or crooked path...)than it is on short path?

 I recently got into debate about why am I so obcessed about long path DXing on low bands....well...on 80m and sometimes 40m. I don't think we can regulary depend on 160m LP DX, altough I have seen some PSKReporter spots of out signals being decoded in W6/W7 over LP, but that was super weak signals, FT8 and RX on the other side was well above average...

So to back to the question - is it actually easier to work California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah etc. on the Long Path, during the November - January window, or is shortpath the way to go???

There isn't a definite answer as always and it depends on many factors. Let's work with "Now and here". We are currently right after the 11 year solar cycle's maximum and Sun is spewing all sorts of stuff at us, often we see Flux going with numbers not too shy of 200's and even SSN and Kp indexes /A indexes are not too shabby. In that respect, let's compare the paths... first let's look at the easier approach, going short path great circle...

Well as you can see, if we tried and had a sked today (and east coast stations ar booming in) we would likely fail, as the current aurora oval would push end bend the signal away from pole southwards and we already see that signals from VE2/VE3's are pushed southwards and are better heard on the WEST beverage rather than the usual NW. 

Let's have a look at yeasterdays afternoon path we had with Bob N7UA

There you can see that south Auororal oval (Aurora Australis) should also be crossed but actually involves bending ov the signal above the oval, hence the signal wasnt likely great circle...still , it was coming between east and sout-south-east , but azimuth was changing quite a bit...

So yesterday and today moirning I would say that it was easier to work Zone 3 / WA right before our sunset, rather than going SP in our easrly morning hours.

And as always, it does help to have a good path and reasonable conditions, as well as some extra gain on TX antenna with very low angle takeoff and ability to receive from certain direction.

So just to summarize - at my end I worked with LVS6/R140 PA, running GU43b tube, I was TXing to 3 element vertical phased array (in-line array) spaced 1/4wl and also 1/4wl elements.And I was receiving on single (yes, I have to repair 2nd one today) SE beverage, around 330m long.