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.

Atlantic hurricane season hangs by a thread

Atlantic hurricane season still has a weak pulse.

Monday saw the unusual development of a tropical storm in the far northeast Atlantic, a few hundred miles southwest of Ireland.

That's right: Ireland.

It's unusual for the National Hurricane Center to use Cork, Ireland, and Brest, France, as reference points in an official discussion about the location and track of a tropical storm. But that was the case for short-lived Tropical Storm Grace, which peaked at 65 mph sustained winds before being absorbed into a large, nontropical low pressure system and cold front.

Another area of disturbed weather in a more common area for tropical development -- the central Atlantic several hundred miles east of the Windward Islands -- spun up into Tropical Storm Henri on Tuesday evening. But the upper-level wind flow is unlikely to let this get anywhere close to the United States.

Overall, the Atlantic tropical season is living up to the expectations of an El Nino pattern. The warming of central Pacific waters that defines El Nino often leads to increased storminess in the Pacific while intensifying upper-level westerly winds that tends to obstruct tropical development in the Atlantic.

The season doesn't end until the end of November, but most seasons that produce a U.S. hurricane landfall in October or November have already produced at least one in August or September.

It's not over till it's over, but it's quite possible for the U.S. that this hurricane season never really began.

Weather Journal runs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.