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.

Messy winter system may trigger full cycle of snow, sleet and rain

Many parts of Southwest Virginia will "hit for the cycle" with this next round of precipitation, expected to begin early Tuesday and continue through Wednesday.

It will likely start as snow, change to sleet, then freezing rain and finally to rain. The tricky part is figuring out how long each stage of precipitation lasts, and how much falls during that time.

The lacking part of Tuesday's winter weather scenario is strong cold air damming. There is no really strong high pressure system positioned correctly to keep pressing the cold air southward as the moisture arrives from the southwest.

As a result, the cold air will be eroded as warmer, moist air pushes in aloft. First in the middle layers of the atmosphere, and then at the surface, temperatures will rise, likely getting above freezing by sometime late Tuesday or Wednesday.

That is all that stands between us and a major winter storm. If for some reason the cold air is deeper or more stubborn than expected, the frozen precipitation types may last longer. If it is not as cold as expected to start with or the warm air rushes in faster, the periods of frozen precipitation may be brief.

The best guess at what will happen is that snow and sleet will collect an inch or two before a few hours of freezing rain put about a quarter-inch layer of ice down, before changing to plain old rain. Expect more snow and sleet to the north of the Roanoke-Blacksburg corridor and less to the south.

Because there are so many variables, what actually happens will probably vary at least some from the forecast. All I feel comfortable saying is that this will be a messy system.