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.

Return of wet jet may make a mess

A missing player returns to the weather stage next week, and it could make things messy.

I mainly mean "messy" in terms of messy forecasts ... but the weather itself could get messy, too.

The southern branch of the jet stream, largely inactive this winter, will begin to intensify over the weekend into next week. A strong low pressure system moving along that river of wind high in the atmosphere will likely spit out a series of disturbances across the southern tier of the United States.

These hard-to-time disturbances, unlike their Canadian cousins that zipped through the area on frigid northwest winds last week, will be able to tap Pacific and Gulf of Mexico moisture, throwing some of that moisture northward over colder air at the surface. This is called an "overrunning" effect.

The messy part is figuring out the timing of each disturbance and the depth of cold air that will be encountered by each one.

The whole gamut of precipitation types is possible: rain, freezing rain, sleet and snow. Precipitation types could vary with each new piece of energy traversing the rapid flow of air across the southern U.S.

Strong high pressure near the West Coast is in the process of breaking down, but it will be able to deliver one final shot of Arctic air to the eastern United States over the weekend. That will snap us out of our brief warmup that could take the mercury to 60 today, just a week after it dropped into the single digits across Southwest Virginia.

High pressure in central and eastern Canada will hold cold air across the eastern U.S. early next week. There is some chance the high could press cold air down the eastern slopes of the Appalachians, trapping it in a familiar "cold-air damming" setup that often leads to winter weather mayhem in our region.

Monday and Tuesday will bring the best chances for any wintry precipitation. The early indication is that freezing rain and sleet are more likely than snow ... not a pleasing thought for snow lovers or sun seekers.

Overrunning situations are always dicey, as even subtle changes in the mix of moisture and cold air can change the whole formula.

As the week goes along, temperatures will become milder as cold high pressure releases its grip. Also, the large low itself may make a move inland, sweeping in more warm, moist air ahead of it. So, from Wednesday on, the chances of just plain old rain increase.

Overrunning may make our cup run over with something next week.