Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.

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• 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
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• 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
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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.