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.

For storm chasing, follow the blog

It's easy to pinpoint the moment storm chasing went mainstream: "Twister."

The 1996 movie starring Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt and a flying cow is often unrealistic in its depiction of storm chasing, but nothing has done more to vault the pursuit of tornadoes into the public imagination.

As much as severe weather experts cringe at some aspects of that movie, it's not uncommon to have students on the trips I have helped lead recall scenes from the movie or play music from it to get inspired. Like it or not, "Twister" has probably put quite a few people on the path to meteorology careers.

In recent years, the Discovery Channel's "Storm Chasers" reality series, following the adventures of the armor-plated "Tornado Intercept Vehicle" and other chasers, has heightened interest.

Now, the Weather Channel is spending five weeks with the massive Vortex2 tornado research project, with the hope of filming a Plains tornado live for its viewers.

All this makes me a little sensitive when it comes to covering the Virginia Tech storm-chasing trip that I will be on board this week through the end of the month. It seems to me as if the media are a bit oversaturated with tornadoes and storm chasing.

Considering all that, and the fact that I've covered this pretty deeply the past four years, I'm limiting most of the coverage of this year's trip to the Weather Journal blog on roanoke.com. I'll write about it on Friday, but after that, the storm trip won't be back in this column (other than some promos pointing to roanoke.com) until after we're back on June 5.

Well, that is, unless we see something really big.

Weather Journal appears on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.