Kevin Myatt

Latest entries from the Weather Journal blog

• Weather Journal remains on break
• Coastal low prompts Southwest Virginia flooding
• Hurricane Ida: Something extraordinary may be happening

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.

There's little likelihood of July heat wave in Roanoke

July has a chance to make a run at the record books, but not for the kind of weather we typically associate with this month.

Through Sunday, Roanoke's average temperature for the first 19 days of July was 72.9 degrees.

If that were the average for the entire 31 days, it would be the third coolest July in Roanoke dating all the way back to 1912.

Roanoke's coolest July averaged 71.7 degrees in 1947, according to records posted by the National Weather Service on its Blacksburg Web site.

Of course, July isn't over yet, so there are still nearly two weeks for a few hot days to skew the average upward.

But this week won't move the average up much, and it might even shave a little more off it.

Cool, dry air from Canada will slowly give way to warm, moist subtropical air during the week. That means that while the nights will get more muggy with lows rising from about 60 early in the week to the mid- and upper 60s later on, daytime highs will continue to struggle with increasing clouds and showers.

It's not likely that any day this week will achieve Roanoke's statistically normal high of 88 for this time of year, typically the peak of the annual heating cycle. Some days, especially early in the week, might not even make 80.

There's no sign of a major pattern shift that would bring a heat wave to Roanoke before July ends.