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.

3 elements needed for wintry weather

Our most wintry periods of cold, snow and ice require three large features to be in place.

(1) High pressure near Greenland, blocking the west-to-east flow of the jet stream, causing it to buckle southward far enough for cold air to filter into our region.

(2) High pressure near the West Coast, forcing the jet stream to dig even farther southward toward the Gulf Coast.

(3) A southern branch of the jet stream undercutting high pressure in the West, bringing wet storms from the Pacific across the southern tier of the United States.

Later this week, the first of those three will take hold.

High pressure has been building westward from Europe toward Greenland, and when it sets up later this week, the jet stream will dip southward and we will see colder weather as 2009 begins.

The longer term, more mysterious question is whether the other two pieces will develop.

At this stage, it doesn't look as if it will happen quickly. Low pressure in the northern Pacific will continue to sweep relatively mild upper-level winds inland across the country from west to east. Meanwhile, there's no solid sign of the jet stream splitting off a discernible southern branch.

Still, the change over the Atlantic will introduce enough cold so that wintry precipitation will become possible with a new storm system over the weekend. As of now, it looks more like a rain episode possibly starting as some ice. But there is a week's worth of details to sort out, and there is at least some chance of our first widespread winter storm of the season by the weekend.