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.

April isn't the coolest month, but may be below average

April appears likely to go down as a cool month.

Several days of cool, damp weather this month have pushed the average temperature 1.4 degrees below normal, at 52.3 degrees, in Roanoke through Monday. Blacksburg was exactly on its normal for the first 13 days of the month at 47.5 degrees.

Both sites were hovering near 50 on Tuesday, well below normal highs in the 60s this time of year.

The rest of this week will bring a cooler, drier air mass that could result in a frost and/or freeze threat across Southwest Virginia by Thursday morning. Most of the region along and east of Interstate 81 is now considered to be in its growing season, so that threat may result in frost and freeze warnings or advisories.

The air will be dry enough that daytime sunshine will warm it rapidly, so the afternoons will be near 70 by Friday and Saturday, before more showery, cool weather moves in by early next week.

Long term, there are signals that strong high pressure is likely to build in the western United States. That would give that region a warm, dry period, but it would push the jet stream farther south across the East, allowing cooler air from Canada to dominate much of the latter half of the month.

Such a pattern may also interrupt, at least temporarily, the steady stream of storm systems that have brought needed rain to the area about every three days. So the damp part of this cool, damp month might become a little less so even as the cool part hangs on.