Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.

kevin.myatt
@roanoke.com
981-3341

Weather with Kevin Myatt

Recent columns

• We got graupel, but not on official record
• Moisture could get caught up in cold blast
• Forecast for Weather Journal: Partly print, with frequent Internet
• Column archive

Read the Weather Journal blog

• Sprinkles or flurries possible Tuesday, but maybe something bigger for the weekend?
• For now, it looks like a quiet, mostly mild week ahead for SW Virginia
• Coldest morning of winter so far likely across much of Southwest Virginia; Tuesday precipitation looking doubtful
• Weather Journal blog

#swvawx on Twitter

@KevinMyattWx

• Follow Kevin on Twitter at @KevinMyattWx

Tornado season is off to a slow start, at least compared with the past few years. Blessedly, tornado deaths also are much fewer.

Through Monday, based on reports turned in to the various National Weather Service offices and collected by the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., there had been 162 reported tornadoes across the United States.

That is the least through the same period of time since there were slightly more than 100 by the end of March in 2005.

By this same time a year ago, there had already been more than 500 tornado reports nationally, on the way to 1,690 for the year.

Bolstered largely by the 59 killed in the massive "Super Tuesday Outbreak" across the South on Feb. 5, there had already been 70 tornado deaths by this time in 2008. Through Monday, only nine have died in tornadoes this year.

There are undoubtedly several factors at work keeping the tornado numbers relatively low so far this year.

One of the biggest may be how far south cold air masses continue to dive in the central U.S. Heavy snow fell in the central and southern Plains last week, and each new cold front suppresses the return of sultry Gulf of Mexico moisture that fuels supercell thunderstorms and tornadoes.

A slow start does not necessarily mean it will stay that way. 2004 had fewer than 100 tornado reports by the end of March, and ended up with 1,820 for the year, the most on record.