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.

New data put years onto lives of records

Roanoke's weather record book has been given an extreme makeover.

You may have noticed in National Weather Service statements, television weather reports or the weather graphic on the back of The Roanoke Times' Virginia section that Roanoke's record highs and lows for many dates now extend back as far as the 1910s.

But you've read in this column many times before how Roanoke's "period of record" for temperature and precipitation extends only to August 1947, when official data at what is now Roanoke Regional Airport, previously Woodrum Field, began.

A national project has extended Roanoke's official period of record for daily temperature and rainfall extremes all the way back to 1912.

The project is called "ThreadEx," short for "threaded extremes." Climatologists and meteorologists have worked to thread together records from various weather stations to extend the historical record of weather extremes for many U.S. cities.

ThreadEx has reshuffled Roanoke's daily and all-time weather records in a major way.

Robert Stonefield, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Blacksburg who has worked on the ThreadEx project, said he was surprised by how many daily records changed with nearly 36 years of new data, especially those for record highs.

"A little over 50 percent of the extreme maximum temperatures are before 1948," Stonefield said in an e-mail. "If I had to guess before looking and counting all the extremes, I would [have] said about 25 [percent] to 30 percent."

In all, 187 record highs, 144 record lows and 133 daily precipitation records for Roanoke were changed as a result of ThreadEx.

Two apparent all-time records set just last year, based on the airport data going back to mid-1947, are already history.

Based on the old data set, Roanoke had not seen a low temperature warmer than the 79 recorded on Aug. 9. But the updated records, going back to 1912, reveal three mornings in the early 1930s when Roanoke's low didn't go below 80.

When Roanoke hit 92 on Oct. 9, that was the latest date in a calendar year it had been at or above 90 -- dating to 1947. But ThreadEx shows it soared to 91 degrees 10 days later than that in 1938.

Indeed, the 1930s contain a disproportionate number of Roanoke's record high temperatures in many of the hotter months. Though the 1930s make up barely 10 percent of Roanoke's new period of record, that decade accounts for 40 percent of the city's record highs from June through September, according to ThreadEx data.

Stonefield cautions against drawing big climatic conclusions based on the new data.

"I would say that this data is acceptable for public use and general information," Stonefield said. "However, use of the data for scientific research that requires minimizing any artificially induced or injected change to a dataset (e.g., global climate change considerations) might be a bit more problematic."

Besides the official National Weather Service measurement stations at Woodrum Field/Roanoke Regional Airport since 1947, the ThreadEx data for Roanoke now also takes into account measurements taken at other Woodrum Field stations as early as 1928, plus Cooperative Observer Program records from sites on Rosalind Avenue Southwest (1922-1960) and Fifth Street Southwest (1912-1922).

As Stonefield points out, even if there had been a single instrument site that never moved from 1912 to today, it would not be a completely unchanged data source. Urbanization, particularly the introduction of concrete and asphalt into previously rural areas, can make significant changes on temperature.

So the extended weather records aren't perfect, but they will add depth to Roanoke's meteorological history for each day of the year. Setting a record temperature will mean more than it once did.

Weather service office to host open house

The National Weather Service in Blacksburg is hosting an open house from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.

Visitors can tour the office and see equipment meteorologists use in making forecasts. There will also be several outdoor exhibits -- I'll be at one of those much of the day, helping with the storm chase van set up by meteorology teacher Dave Carroll. Say hi if you stop by.

To get to the weather service office, turn off U.S. 460 on Southgate Drive toward Lane Stadium. Take a right on Tech Center Drive. The weather service office is on the right just past the airport. You'll know it by the array of satellite dishes just outside the building.

For more information, call warning coordination meteorologist Phil Hysell at (540) 552-1613 ext. 223 or e-mail him at phil.hysell@noaa.gov.

On the Net: ThreadEx project updated weather records for U.S. cities: threadex.rcc-acis.org

Weather Journal appears on Fridays, with short updates on Mondays and Wednesdays.

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