Kevin Myatt

Latest entries from the Weather Journal blog

• Weather Journal remains on break
• Coastal low prompts Southwest Virginia flooding
• Hurricane Ida: Something extraordinary may be happening

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.

Tuesday's low temperature was a year away from being in record books

A year ago, Tuesday's morning low of 54 in Roanoke would have been considered a new record low for Aug. 12, eclipsing the previous record of 55 set in 1963.

But since then, the record book has changed.

ThreadEx, a national project to expand the historical time frame for temperature records in many cities across the nation, extended Roanoke's period of record for daily extremes all the way back to 1912. Previously, it only went back to mid-1947, based solely on Roanoke airport data.

Because of that, the reigning record low for Aug. 12 is 51, set in 1930.

Last August, Roanoke set what was then an all-time record for warmest low temperature when it fell to only 79 on Aug. 9. But the research of records from 1912 to 1947 at various sites in Roanoke turned up three dates in the 1930s when the low failed to get below 80. So much for the all-time record.

Overall, though, the hot August of 2007 still holds up well in the deepened record book.

Five of six daily record-high temperatures set last August, based on Roanoke airport data dating to 1947, remain in place with the records extended back to 1912. Six of seven daily records for warmest low temperature set in 2007 are also still standing.

I wrote a column in April explaining the ThreadEx research in more detail. You can still find that on the Web at www.roanoke.com/weather/wb/156966.