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.

Temps feel like a '50s flashback

If you were born after Oct. 4, 1959, and lived in the Roanoke Valley throughout your life, you never experienced a 90-degree day in October until Sunday.

Now, you've lived through three of them.

When the high reached 91 on Sunday, that marked the latest in the season it had ever reached 90 degrees or higher in Roanoke, dating back to when official records began being kept at the Roanoke airport in 1948. Previously, the latest 90-degree day was Oct. 6, 1951, when it hit 91.

Sunday's record lasted one day. Monday's high also was 91, moving the latest 90-degree mark for Roanoke to Oct. 8.

That record also only lasted one day. Tuesday's high hit 92, shifting the latest 90-degree standard to Oct. 9.

It's not just the Roanoke Valley that is sizzling. Blacksburg has also been clobbering records, beating its daily record highs by 5 to 7 degrees each of the past three days with highs of 87, 87 and 86 respectively. On Monday, Bluefield, W.Va., set a record for hottest temperature on record in October at 88. (Roanoke's highest October temperature is 93 on Oct. 5, 1951.)

2007 is running up the score on heat records, breaking out of a pattern when most recent years have had relatively few truly hot days.

Before Sunday, Roanoke had recorded only six days of 90-degree weather in October through 59 years of official records. All of those occurred in the 1950s.

The three 90-degree days this week are the most for any October on record, more than the two that occurred in 1951 and 1959.

That makes 56 days that have hit at least 90 for the year, moving 2007 into second place, trailing only the 65 days of 1954.

The year has already produced the hottest month on record in August. January, March and September of 2007 were among the warmest for those particular months.

We've had some extremely cool intervals as well, such as the first halves of February and April, and late July. But those cool spells have not derailed the overall track of this year from being extremely warm relative to normal.

Barring a lot of extreme cold in the last few months, this year may well finish as the warmest on record in Roanoke.

Extreme cold is not on the horizon. But more typical autumn cool is on the way.

A cold front moving through by Thursday will usher in some Canadian air that will return temperatures to the 60s and 70s for highs and into the 40s for lows late this week. Don't rule out a few 30s or even some frost in some of the area's colder spots.

But the long-term prognosis for the weather pattern this month indicates that high pressure is likely to rebuild by late next week. This would likely bring a return to above-normal temperatures.

The Climate Prediction Center is forecasting a likelihood of above normal temperatures over most of the continental United States east of the Rockies through most of the next two weeks.

While it hasn't been 90 in Roanoke any later than Oct. 9, it did make it as high as 89 on Oct. 12 and 13 in 1954. It's been above 80 as late as the first week of December.

So, if the atmospheric pattern is right, it can still get hot even as the sun angle continues to get lower and the days get shorter.

This truly seems like an endless summer.

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