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.

Long-range computer modeling came through in predicting rain system

This week's coastal low that moved inland and soaked us was a success story for sometimes-maligned long-range computer modeling.

For most of the past two weeks, long-range computer forecast models were consistent in developing a strong low-pressure system somewhere near the Southeast U.S. coast.

The details of the system, including location and timing, varied as different models spit out several new solutions each day. Sometimes, it showed up as strictly a low-pressure system forming with the help of an upper-level low and a stalled front; sometimes it appeared to have tropical characteristics, or incorporated the system that has since become Hurricane Kyle far off the East Coast.

But run after run, different forecast models showed the storm in a similar location. National forecasters highlighted the East Coast for high wind and waves many days before the storm even formed.

By early last week, the models began to show that the system was going to take a track farther west rather than just hanging along the coast. It ended up coming ashore a little farther south, moving inland a little farther west and moving a little slower than earlier projected. Some models gradually caught on to what was happening.

So that's how a remote chance of showers turned into a three-day intermittent rain. The computer models painted the broad strokes of the weather pattern well, but needed some last-minute touches to fill in the details.