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Latest entries from the Weather Journal 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.
Much-needed rainfall appears headed our way
By Kevin Myatt
The Roanoke Times
Available water won't be a major crisis, area officials assure us, even if we don't get rain before the end of the year. That was in staff writer Cody Lowe's article on page 1 of Tuesday's paper.
There is even better news than that. We probably won't even get to the end of this week before there is significant rain, and there is potential for more next week.
A strong low moving northeastward through the central United States, dragging a cold front, is pulling moisture northward from the Gulf of Mexico.
As this milder Pacific front moves through about Friday and Saturday, this moisture will be squeezed out, and widespread rain appears likely.
We're probably not talking a gully-washer, more likely a half-inch to an inch in most places. It's not certain yet whether this will be a showery rain or more of a general rain.
Friday even harbors some threat of severe thunderstorms in our area. A much greater risk of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes appears likely the next two days over parts of the Plains and Midwest as warm air and cold air collide and strong high-altitude winds spin developing thunderstorms.
Getting Gulf moisture involved is the key to alleviating the drought in the mid-Atlantic and Southeast.
Our weather patterns for the past several months have simply not allowed the Gulf to be in play for very long. That's why the Southeast has dried to a crisp, and our area isn't doing much better.
Big dumps of rain have value, but to really break out of a pattern of drought, repeated moderate rains are the best remedy. Cold fronts sweeping abundant Gulf moisture through every three or four days for a couple of months would be ideal.
Computer forecast models for next week have been latching onto something that would be tantalizing for our moisture interests.
They have been showing the possibility of a strong upper-level low becoming stuck for a few days to our west. If that were to transpire, we could get several days of Gulf moisture pumped over us, and that could lead to a wet period of a few days.
Keep in mind these are computer models a week away, subject to several changes, so don't bank on any forecast details. But for now, the overall pattern shows signs of moving to a more typical fall pattern.
That could mean both rain and cooler temperatures.
The big picture still argues against this settling in for very long, with warm, dry weather the overall expectation through the winter. But somehow, I have a feeling that we won't be talking about drought and empty reservoirs in a few months.
NOTES
A couple of notes following up on my Saturday column about the unusual lack of ice in the Arctic Ocean.
I stated in the column that hard data on Arctic ice expanse goes back only to 1979. In fact, there is observational data that date to 1900. Satellite data began in the late 1970s. I suppose it all depends on your definition of "hard data."
The University of Illinois Climate Research Group, whose satellite images I made use of in Saturday's column, reported something very quirky Oct. 1 in its online newsletter "Cryosphere Today." While Arctic ice has reached its lowest expanse on record, Antarctic ice has actually reached a record for largest seasonal expanse. The Antarctic record dates only to the late 1970s, while the Arctic record, as we discussed above, dates to about 1900.
I have no ready explanation for why one pole would go one way while the other goes the opposite way in the same season. But it is interesting.
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