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.

Atlantic, Pacific duel for winter

The wrestling match has begun. Wednesday's winds were the opening bell.

The atmosphere over the Atlantic has moved into a wintry mode, with blocking high pressure near Greenland forcing the jet stream to buckle southward behind it, bringing colder air southward.

But the atmosphere over the Pacific is still trying to do the mild-winter thing it's done for most of the past four years, with strong low pressure in the northern Pacific sweeping in a strong blast of mild air west to east across the country.

So now, they battle for supremacy.

Because of the changes over the Atlantic, we can expect generally cold weather over most of the next couple of weeks. That does not mean it will stay below freezing every day or that any precipitation that falls will be snow or ice. It does mean not to expect to wear shorts and short sleeves much, like we've become accustomed to in early January lately.

The struggle is likely to produce periodic rounds of precipitation as mild, moist winds from the southwest overrun colder air near the surface.

What form that precipitation will take will depend largely on which side is winning the wrestling match at the time.

Over the weekend, it appears as if enough milder air will creep in so that precipitation will more likely be rain rather than anything frozen, except perhaps for some pockets of freezing rain in colder valleys.

Come Monday night and Tuesday, it's not as certain. The cold air may hold in enough for a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain with a new storm system moving northeast from the Gulf of Mexico.

None of these look like major winter storms or big soaking rains, but just enough precipitation to make things slippery if we do happen to hang below 32.

Down the road, it does look as if the Atlantic's cold pattern will gain an upper hand for at least a period of time, as high pressure near the West Coast rearranges the Pacific pattern enough to enable it to enhance the movement of cold air into the eastern United States.

But for the course of the entire winter, the Pacific pattern that's been so hard to overcome for years may prove hard to beat. The block over Greenland will probably fold about midmonth, and milder weather is likely to return by the latter half of January.

It would then be a matter of whether the colder pattern could regroup for February, or if we would just slip silently into spring.