Kevin Myatt

Latest entries from the Weather Journal blog

• Read the full blog

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.

Storm chasers now a thundering herd on prairie

I'm sure many of you once had a favorite fishing spot or hiking destination that you would go to on weekends to get away from everyone and everything.

Then, you started noticing a few other people enjoying your secret spot. You'd have to work a little harder to find your private space, but it was still an enjoyable getaway.

Within a few years, even more people discovered your spot, until it became routinely crowded. The experience wasn't nearly as enjoyable with the noise and the bustle of crowds.

This is probably the way some of the storm chasing pioneers from two or three decades back feel about the state of their avocation today.

The days are long gone when a few weather enthusiasts can have rural roads to themselves when there is a significant threat of severe weather in the Plains, especially in Kansas, Oklahoma or Texas.

Parked alongside a gravel road near grain silos in rural northern Kansas while observing a developing tornado May 22, the two vanlods of student storm chasers I helped lead were passed by at least 30 vehicles within a few minutes. And we were not even on the main highway in the region, which reportedly had much more chaser traffic.

Many factors have influenced the growth of amateur storm chasing. Certainly, television documentaries full of exciting tornado footage and the 1990s motion picture hit "Twister" have stoked the flames.

Perhaps the biggest factor, though, is the availability of knowledge and technology. Information about severe storms that would have once been limited to advanced weather professionals is now easily found in a few minutes on the Internet.

It's still not easy to find tornadoes and take up a safe position to observe them, but it is within the range of anyone with no previous experience to become sufficiently informed with a few weeks of study to have a fighting chance. Many have done exactly that.

Each year, the chaser traffic multiplies.

Imagine if your county were invaded by hundreds of vehicles from other states amid what can already be a stressful situation with the possibility of loss of life and major damage. That's why some nerves are jangled.

A Hays, Kan., newspaper published an article following the May 22 severe weather outbreak quoting local authorities who had become frustrated with the number and behavior of storm chasers in their counties.

The article triggered 17 pages (and counting) of discussion and debate on Stormtrack.org, an online forum for storm chasers.

Many chasers thought the whole bunch was being blamed for a few bad apples.

Some pointed to more positive results of chasers being on the scene, such as being among the first to help the injured and homeless when Greensburg, Kan., was obliterated by a tornado May 5. Chasers obviously have a big role in reporting on storms to authorities.

They also pump money into the economies of small Plains towns, taking hotel rooms and restaurant tables that would otherwise go unfilled.

But some agreed that the throng of chasers has become a little too much for rural Plains counties, or the chaser community itself, to handle.

It would be easy for me to dismiss all of this. The officials in the article said they had no issue with college groups, like our Virginia Tech-aligned team, focusing their angst on "freelance" chasers not associated with official storm spotting, education or research.

We were pretty successful in getting away from a lot of the chaser traffic on back roads, avoiding main-stem highways. More than once, we found viewing spots from which we heard nothing but thunder and birds chirping as we watched rotating storm clouds over the Kansas prairies.

When we did encounter groups of chase vehicles, we didn't really see much behavior that we would consider disrespectful or harmful.

Also, our own encounters with law enforcement in the Plains have been unfailingly cordial. Often, police or sheriff's deputies have come up to us to find out information on the weather, to talk about a recent or past storm, or just to chat.

However, if I had been living within driving distance of Kansas on May 22 and had the day available, I'm almost certain I would have been there myself as a freelance chaser, adding to the throng.

So I am, potentially, either part of the problem or part of the solution. Though I love to catch storms in less-frequented areas, I'm certain I'll want to tag a few more supercells in the Plains before my days on Earth are through.

My operating principles, whether following a storm in Hill City, Kan., or Hillsville, Va., will be respect for local people, following the traffic laws to the best of my ability, and doing my best to share what I know with those who need to know.

The sky is big enough for all of us to share.

Weather Journal will take a break and return June 23.

Conditions and Storms

• Latest storm warnings and radar from the National Weather Service in Blacksburg
• Ski slopes -- in season, of course
• Road conditions
• Tropical storm updates - 24/7
• Chasing the Wind  - On the road in Tornado Alley

Recent Weather Journals

• Tuesday's storm as rare as it was strong
• Thunderstorms boil from summer's cauldron
• Storms come super-sized in the Plains
• Latest Weather Journals