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.

Report addresses high tides

You may remember back in June and July that unusually high tides affected much of the East Coast, ranging from 6 inches to 2 feet above normal.

A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report points to two causes of the high seas, exceptional in their intensity, duration and areal coverage:

n Steady northeast winds pushing water toward the coast.

n A slowdown of the Florida Transport Current, which feeds into the Gulf Stream, the strong north-flowing warm ocean current just off the East Coast.

High pressure persisted near Greenland much of early to midsummer. In addition to forcing the jet stream unusually far to the south, causing record low July temperatures in much of the Midwest and East, it pushed northeast winds toward the East Coast, banking water against the seaboard.

The ocean current slowdown is not as readily understood.

One of the back-and-forth issues within climate change science is whether cold Arctic meltwater flowing southward will one day slow down the entire Gulf Stream, resulting in a period of sharp cooling for eastern North America and Europe.

In this case, however, the answer may be related to natural climatic variables, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation, a shift in which led to the persistent high near Greenland. Researchers will be looking beyond the two pinpointed factors to trace their underlying causes.

Weather Journal runs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.