Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.

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We began 2004 warm. We'll begin 2005 mild. In between, there was a little of everything else, and a whole lot of tropical stuff.

Maybe you don't remember how this year began. It was 60 degrees on New Year's Day. By Jan. 3 and 4, record temperatures of 74 and 73 were set. The weather pattern was not all that much different than what we have now, with a Western low pressure trough and an Eastern high pressure ridge guiding the jet stream far to our north.

By Jan. 6, a new regime set in, as arctic chill returned. By Jan. 9, the ground was white again, with the first snow of 2004, 3-6 inches across the area when 1-2 had been expected.

The rest of January was cold. Only one day the rest of the month after Jan. 6 would have a low above freezing at Roanoke Regional Airport, with the lowest a reading of 11 on the month's last day. On Jan. 26-27, there was a crunchy snow special with 4-8 inches of snow topped by sleet and freezing rain.

February was the month of winter storm curveballs. An early month storm raised fears of an ice storm, but instead, turned into a few inches of sleet and snow. A mid-month storm looked to clip us to the south, but edged just far enough north to bring 2-8 inches of snow on areas generally from the James River south. A big late month storm took a path that is classic for big snows in our area, but too much dry air shut off the moisture for most of our area while North Carolina got pounded by up to a foot of snow.

March was mostly a warm month, with four days in the 70s among the first six and a record high of 78 in Roanoke on March 26. The last snowflakes of the season fell on the Roanoke Valley on the morning of March 10. April was an unremarkable month, a little warmer than normal with average rainfall. May was one of Virginia's warmest on record, with temperatures average 7 degrees above normal in Roanoke. Highs hit 89 four times in the month, but no records. Parts of the New River Valley were hit by a memorable hailstorm on May 9, with hail several inches deep in some places.

June was mostly a dry month, with nearly all the month's rain falling on June 4, with 2.35 inches. July was average both in temperature and rainfall, with the mercury never getting higher than 90 degrees. The summer's hottest temperature at Roanoke was merely 91 degrees on Aug. 19 and 20, but August overall was a little cooler than normal and nearly an inch of rain wetter.

Then came September, the month that will forever define our area's weather in 2004.

11.72 inches of rain for the month was the second wettest month on record in Roanoke. Some 5.03 inches came from Hurricane Frances on Sept. 7-8, and 4.94 inches from the remnants of Hurricane Jeanne on Sept. 27-28. The difference between the two was that Frances poured on dry ground, so creeks and rivers barely got out of their banks, while Jeanne poured onto a ground that had been soaked for a month. Jeanne sent the Roanoke River to its highest point since the famous 1985 flood, and many area creeks and rivers left their banks to inundate homes and businesses.

In between, the remnants of Hurricane Ivan unleashed an unusual outbreak of tornadoes in our area, with serious damage along paths in Henry and Bedfored counties.

The tropical systems initiated a period of warmer-than-normal weather that lasted through the rest of the fall and into December. Finally, with some strong cold fronts that forced some mean winds through our mountains, arctic air returned by mid-December. A record low of 8 degrees was set on Dec. 20, while Blacksburg tied a record at 0.

Then, it began warming up again. And that's where we'll start 2005, waiting to see what ups and downs, twists and turns will unfold in our weather drama over the next 365 days.