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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.
April's rain delivers jab at drought
By Kevin Myatt
The Roanoke Times
April overachieved in bringing showers.
April averages 3.61 inches of rain for Roanoke. After downpours Sunday and Monday, 4.94 inches have fallen this month. No more is expected today, so April will most likely end 113 inches above normal in rainfall.
It is Roanoke's wettest month relative to normal since October finished more than 2 inches above normal. It's only our second above-normal rainfall month in the past 17 and only the sixth in the past 28. So that's why we can have some good rains and still officially be in a drought.
The national Drought Monitor is released each Thursday. I will post a link to that from my blog after it comes out. I suspect that we will pull back from moderate drought to just abnormally dry because of this week's rain -- maybe even out of drought altogether in some areas.
Saturday will likely bring May's first rain and storms with a new cold front, but the rain probably will not be as heavy as what occurred earlier this week.
While the cold front early this week was good news for our drought, it caused destructive tornadoes in southeast Virginia. We'll take a closer look at those in Saturday's Weather Journal.
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