Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Weather columnist Kevin Myatt: Blue skies, sunshine cloud the storm story
Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.
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The clouds broke and the winds slowly died as we headed west across Tennessee and Arkansas on Sunday. Blue skies and bright sunshine greeted us as our 12-member storm-chasing team traveled through western Arkansas and into Oklahoma on Monday.
The weather we traveled westward through belies the turbulent spring this region has experienced, a pattern of destructive storms that has also spread eastward to include parts of Virginia and the Carolinas. At least 96 people have died in tornadoes nationally since Jan. 1, according to the Storm Prediction Center.
We saw some of the scars. Trees were scattered left and right on both sides of Interstate 40 as we crossed a tornado path near Jackson, Tenn., one of scores of storms in the huge Feb. 5 outbreak over the Southeast that killed 58.
We crossed a similar scene on I-40 near Atkins, Ark., where a tornado started out on a 100-mile-long path Feb. 5 up and over repeated ridges of the seemingly impenetrable Ozarks.
It's been a rough spring, but as we arrived in Oklahoma we found friendly smiles and kind words greeting us, even when they found out we were here to observe the storms they dread. "You just missed them," one man said, heartily not angrily, referring to Saturday's tornado outbreak that killed at least 22.
The winds started picking up in Oklahoma on Monday evening, and the threat of severe weather hung over the region yet again for Tuesday. You can visit my blog to see what, if anything, we found.
