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.

Say so long to sticky summer, at least for now

It won't get to 100 in Roanoke this summer.

OK, so that's not really a huge limb to go out on, considering it is already Aug. 21 and it hasn't gone higher than 92 yet.

But there is an atmospheric shift in the works that will just about eliminate any chance of an extreme summer heat wave in Southwest Virginia for 2009. It might even give us an early taste of fall.

The pattern that is developing is actually a return to that which kept July unseasonably cool, bringing unprecedented midsummer chill to several states just to our northwest.

Throughout most of July, the nation's hottest air banked in the West. The jet stream was rerouted up and over that dome of hot air, diving southeast into the East. The jet stream was blocked from its typical summertime west-to-east glide across Canada by strong high pressure near Greenland.

That brought unseasonably cool air from Canada into the Upper Midwest, Great Lakes and throughout much of the East.

A cold front arriving today or early Saturday, will reintroduce that cooler regime to the same areas it controlled earlier this summer.

Today should be the last day of the recent sticky tropical pattern as a strong cold front presses toward the region. The cold front will squeeze out another round of showers and thunderstorms today, some of which could produce heavy rain or strong winds. A few showers may linger into Saturday.

The advancing cold front will also deflect Hurricane Bill away from the East Coast, though there's a chance it might scrape New England.

By early next week, highs will struggle to reach 80 and most Southwest Virginia locations will see lows in the 50s.

This general weather pattern, with a few ups and downs on the thermometer (and maybe even a brief hot spike near 90 late next week), appears likely to hang on for at least the next couple of weeks, taking us into September, the start of meteorological fall.

So by the time it might let go, we would be already very much on our downward slide into fall, as the days continue to shorten and the sun angle lessens each day.

Summerlike heat waves are not unheard of in September and even October, but autumn hot spells are generally more severe if they have been preceded by a hot, dry summer.

It has never been 100 or above in Roanoke after Sept. 5, though it was 99 as late as Oct. 6 in 1941. We had a run of record-setting low 90s heat on Oct. 7-9 just two years ago, but that followed a record-hot August and warmer-than-normal September.

So the coming cool pattern will be a reflection on a summer that has been far from hot and a reminder of an autumn that is close at hand.

Weather Journal appears on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.