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.

Rain abates as moisture goes from a torrent to a trickle

The faucet has been shut off.

After a seven-week period that produced more than 13 inches of rain in Blacksburg and almost 12 inches in Roanoke -- more than a quarter of each site's annual average rainfall -- the spigot of Gulf of Mexico moisture has been suddenly closed.

A change in the large-scale atmospheric pattern over North America has been bringing dry north winds into Virginia, pulled down the clockwise rotation of a strong high-pressure system heating up the south-central United States.

Over the next few days, Gulf moisture will begin to return, but only in a trickle. There may be just enough that a new cold front, daytime heating and some weak upper-level disturbances might be able to trigger a few scattered showers and thunderstorms by Thursday and Friday.

But no new torrent of moisture is expected in the near future. Dry northwest winds are expected to prevail for several days, circulating around the stubborn summerlike heat dome in the nation's midsection.

This statement would have seemed odd during the past few years of drought, but a welcome drying period is under way in soggy Southwest Virginia.

Weather Journal appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.