Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.

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• We got graupel, but not on official record
• Moisture could get caught up in cold blast
• Forecast for Weather Journal: Partly print, with frequent Internet
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• Sprinkles or flurries possible Tuesday, but maybe something bigger for the weekend?
• For now, it looks like a quiet, mostly mild week ahead for SW Virginia
• Coldest morning of winter so far likely across much of Southwest Virginia; Tuesday precipitation looking doubtful
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Tornado sirens wailed as we drove through Hays, Kan., on Friday evening.

We had seen the tornado that was coming -- a broad, ugly monster, sweeping northeastward angrily.

Those sirens brought back memories of cowering from tornadoes in a bathroom as a child. It took two extremely deadly and destructive tornadoes five years apart in the late 1960s and early 1970s to persuade my Arkansas hometown to install warning sirens.

While Hays was on the edge of the tornado warning, the actual tornado passed west of the central Kansas town, causing damage at nearby Ellis.

We stopped just east of Hays to look back at the supercell thunderstorm spawning the tornado. The entire storm, a boiling, dark mass, rotated before us. Strong winds blasted from east to west directly into the storm.

Hays firemen stopped to look at our radar, thankful for the information we were able to provide for them.

Our student storm chasers, who had already seen nine tornadoes in two days, stood in awe at the spectacle, their hair whipped and clothes rippled by the winds.

Sirens blared miserably in the town before us. Police cars and fire trucks with loudspeakers roamed the streets, warning of the storm.

My stomach tightened. Yes, I go looking for these storms, and often find them. But the childhood dread hasn't left me.