Kevin Myatt

Latest entries from the Weather Journal blog

• UPDATE 12:40 PM: Window for pure snow closing; sleet/freezing rain more likely
• UPDATE 10:30 AM: Snow again -- an early start
• UPDATE 5 AM: Well, here we snow again ... overnight and early morning

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.

Blacksburg grad to help in tornado project

A Blacksburg High School graduate is among about 100 scientists taking part in an extensive project to research tornadoes in the Great Plains over the next five weeks.

Jacob Carley, a 2004 Blacksburg graduate who received a meteorology degree at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and is in graduate studies at Purdue University, will be onboard one of 10 mobile radar vehicles in the VORTEX2 tornado research project.

VORTEX2 includes about 40 vehicles, according to the project's Web site. The goal will be to position the vehicles, instruments and probes around a single tornadic thunderstorm to collect data on the storm's development and operation. VORTEX2 started Sunday and runs through mid-June.

VORTEX stands for Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment. The original VORTEX operated in 1994 and 1995. Plans are under way for VORTEX2 to continue in the spring of 2010.

Carley participated in the storm-chasing trip led by Virginia Tech meteorology instructor Dave Carroll, formerly a Pulaski County High School teacher, in both 2005 and 2006. I have been onboard that trip each year from 2005 to 2008. We plan to return to the Plains with a 16-member Virginia Tech storm-chasing team for two weeks starting Sunday.

Weather Journal appears on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.