Kevin Myatt

Latest entries from the Weather Journal blog

• Weather Journal taking a long break
• Yes, there's still an Atlantic tropical season going on
• Freezing temperatures likely tonight

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.

Showers coming to Southwest Va. unlikely to have tropical source

The tropics are finally hopping, but it's having little effect on Southwest Virginia.

As Tropical Storm Cristobal scraped by North Carolina's Outer Banks on Sunday, spinning out a few showers and gusts, temperatures soared into the 90s in Roanoke as the midsummer sun cooked relatively dry air.

Tropical Storm Dolly formed in the Caribbean, likely headed for Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and then maybe toward southern Texas. The only way Dolly would affect us is if some of its remnant moisture gets pulled into storm systems crossing the nation from west to east, many days out.

These tropical storms follow on the heels of Hurricane Bertha, which stayed well east of the United States during its two-week life cycle. That cycle finally ended Sunday when the storm became extratropical.

Showers and thunderstorms are expected to gradually increase this week in our area, but that will have little or nothing to do with tropical systems.

Instead, it will be familiar inland features that will return this summer to a stormy pattern as the week advances.

After a week under dry and increasingly hot high pressure, the jet stream will again dip southward into the Eastern U.S., helping to bring cold fronts and disturbances toward us as Gulf of Mexico moisture is lifted northward.

So, let's keep an eye on the tropics, but keep looking over land for what is likely to affect us most.