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.

Pieces might not fit for big snow

Perhaps you have a gotten a present before that really interested you, but then you learned you had to put it together yourself.

You poured the pieces out of a box and wondered, "How am I going to put this together?" And then, as you got into it, you found some screws were missing or some pieces didn't quite fit together.

That's sort of what is happening with a possible storm system that could affect us over the weekend, one that could have been -- and, really, still could be, if some things change -- our first significant winter storm of the season.

The winter storm assembly kit is in place. Several times this week, computer forecast models were showing what it might look like fully assembled as it moved up the East Coast on Sunday and Monday.

But as we get closer to that time, it looks like the pieces are not going to fit quite right. Or, at least, the winter storm is not going to get put together in time for the snow lovers of Southwest Virginia to play in it.

Two different cold swirls of wind high in the atmosphere -- upper-level disturbances, as meteorologists like to call them -- are moving in our general direction.

One is coming from the west across the southern U.S., the other from the northwest across the Ohio Valley.

If these systems combine forces early enough, a large low pressure system could form near the Gulf of Mexico and then move up the East Coast.

This would sweep both Gulf and Atlantic moisture inland over our region.

The strong low pressure system that rained on us Thursday night is moving across southeastern Canada. Its counterclockwise rotation will pull colder air from Canada across us this weekend.

Big low moving up the coast, moisture sweeping inland, cold air from Canada -- it's often a recipe for snow in our area.

But it appears the two disturbances will not connect until they're east of our area. As it stands now, a strong low is expected to form somewhere off the coast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., or maybe Virginia Beach, not near the Gulf.

The storm will likely wrap up north of our region, making it more of an issue for locations between Washington and Maine rather than Southwest Virginia.

We might still get some light snow on Sunday. But a big snowfall appears to be unlikely, unless a lot more Gulf moisture gets involved and it can stay cold enough.

The only thing certain about weather is its uncertainty. It's still just close enough to being a winter storm scenario to bear watching to see if anything changes with the timing.

It looks like we may start playing this "will-it-snow, won't-it-snow" game on a regular basis. By the end of next week, another system may put us through the same motions.

And beyond that, there are increasing signals that the last 10 days or so of January may feature a colder pattern with the potential for storm systems to move across from the Pacific.

I am increasingly convinced that winter will bother to show up this year.

So, even if this one doesn't get put together right, there may well be more boxes to open, with a new confusing array of pieces in each one.

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