Kevin Myatt

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About Kevin

Kevin Myatt grew up in Arkansas to the tune of tornado sirens and the rhythm of hailstones, aspiring to be a meteorologist before his studies and career were turned to journalism instead. Though he often chases storms, he prefers living in the cooler, more tranquil weather of the Blue Ridge. He moved to Roanoke in 1999 to take a job on the copy desk of The Roanoke Times; writing headlines and editing copy is his principal work for the newspaper today.

Each May, Kevin assists Pulaski County High School / Virginia Tech meteorology instructor Dave Carroll in leading college and high school students to the Plains to observe severe weather firsthand. The accounts of many of his storm chases can be found here on the storm chasing page of his weather blog on roanoke.com.

Kevin was an editor for "Hurricanes and the Middle Atlantic States," a book written by D.C.-area weather enthusiast Rick Schwartz and published by Blue Diamond Books that documents hurricanes striking the mid-Atlantic states since colonial times.

The Weather Journal column began in 2003 and appears on Friday's Virginia section front in The Roanoke Times. The Weather Journal blog began in 2006 and follows weather day-by-day between the larger columns.

Forget politics; I'll stick to the weather

Thursday was my strangest day yet as a weather columnist for The Roanoke Times.

In the early afternoon, calls and e-mails began coming into the office that my Wednesday column about our potentially historic cold spell in Roanoke was quoted on conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh's nationally syndicated radio talk show.

Limbaugh read several paragraphs of my column as one of many news items about severe cold in the United States in February. His overall point was that global warming hysteria is misplaced and that the media as a whole use short-term warm spells as evidence of global warming but do not question global warming when we have cold snaps.

Reading the transcript Friday, I was relieved he didn't say I was making a statement on global warming, because I didn't. I merely wrote that February has been unusually cold in Roanoke. That's a fact.

Limbaugh or anyone else can use that fact to support whatever opinion or viewpoint they choose. As long as my purpose in delivering that fact is not misrepresented, and I don't think it was in this case, I have no objections.

Thursday night, I served as a panelist in a diametrically opposed forum on the topic of climate change. Diana Christopulos of the Roanoke Valley Cool Cities Coalition, a grass-roots organization encouraging local governments to adopt clean energy standards, had graciously invited me to be a part of a panel that included former City Councilman and Carter administration official Rupert Cutler, Hollins University professor Renee Godard and Hollins senior Sara Geres, who leads a campus environmental club.

It was the first part of a climate change film festival that will continue on three more Thursdays into March. We watched the HBO film "Too Hot Not to Handle," which paints a dire picture of the consequences of global warming and issues a stringent call for action.

In that gathering of about 100 people, I heard some talk of the Kyoto Protocol and energy taxes that would make Limbaugh's listeners wretch.

I can honestly say I'm honored to have been part of both formats, because I'm not about politics in my role as weather columnist. I'm about weather.

I have come to call global warming "the g word" because you can't even mention it without someone getting angry at you. I've been blasted by global warming critics and activists alike for things I have written, often misconstrued or taken out of context.

Some people think I should never mention global warming. Some people think it should be the primary thing I write about. I don't like either of those ideas.

World climate really isn't my principal interest. I just like weather. I like tracking storm systems, observing how the weather patterns develop, watching clouds form, seeing snow fall, hearing thunder, and hiking through the woods under a clear blue sky surrounded by the beautiful landscape of Southwest Virginia.

I like sharing years of observation and experience, and I like hearing from readers, who often have interesting insights or provocative questions that make me study and learn something new.

Behind my Christian faith, my wife, my family, all the other wonderful people in my life and my devoted dog, weather has been the driving passion of my life. It was when I was 6 years old, and it still is.

My vow to you readers is that I will not allow this column to become consumed with the politics that have enveloped the global warming issue. I will stick to weather primarily, and to a lesser extent, climate.

My first priority is short-term local weather -- what it's doing now, what it's been doing recently, what it's expected to do in upcoming days and weeks.

Beyond that, when immediate weather is less urgent, I will delve into local climate, regional and national weather, historic weather, and yes, national and worldwide climate. From time to time, I will write of new reports pointing out large-scale trends or records, and except for some brief nonpolitical, meteorology-focused commentary about it, leave it to you for interpretation.

There are more qualified people than I to hash out what energy policy we need to develop. I may have some opinions, but I'll keep them in private conversation, personal decision-making and the voting booth where they belong. On many aspects of this complex topic, I'm still studying and learning right alongside many of you.

With all due respect to the political junkies who surround me here at The Roanoke Times, politics would be an enormous waste of my time and energy when I can write about weather instead.