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Current Conditions: Fair
Temperature: 72°F Wind: From the VAR at 5 mph Relative Humidity: 76% |
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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.
June was hot, wet in Roanoke; not as hot, but very dry in Blacksburg
By Kevin Myatt
The Roanoke Times
June was a hot, wet month in Roanoke, but a warm, dry month in Blacksburg.
Dating back to the late 1940s, it was the second-hottest June on record at the Roanoke airport. The average temperature of 75.9 degrees has only been exceeded in one previous June on record: 77.8 degrees in 1952.
Roanoke's average high temperature in June was 87.3 degrees -- also exceeded only by June 1952, when the average high was nearly 91 degrees. The high hit 90 in Roanoke on l1 days this June, and reached at least 80 on every other day except one, when the high was 79. The high was 95 or 96 on five consecutive days from June 6 to June 10.
We often think of the words "hot" and "dry" as being linked. Yet, while Roanoke's June temperature averaged 4 degrees above normal, the airport collected 4.64 inches of rain -- almost an inch above normal for the month.
Contrast that with Blacksburg, which was a little less warm relative to normal and much drier.
Blacksburg's average June temperature of 69.6 was almost 3 degrees above normal. Its June rain total of 2.27 inches was less than half that of Roanoke's and 1.66 inches below normal for the month.
Blacksburg collected just .11 inch of rain on June 3, when a rare, tornadic supercell thunderstorm dumped 1.05 inches at Roanoke's airport. Blacksburg got just .60 inch out of June 22 thunderstorms, while Roanoke got more than double that at 1.25 inches.
Over the course of 30 days, 30 miles can make a lot of difference.
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