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.

East Coast could be in for scrape with Irene

Posted 8/12/05, 6 p.m.: By the minute, Irene looks more and more like she will be content to play with the fishies, after all. It looks like high pressure in the central Atlantic will not be strong enough to push Irene far enough west to make a direct landfall on the U.S. East Coast.

Don't take your eye off this entirely yet. You can keep touch with the National Hurricane Center on the link at the upper left of this column (labeled "Tropical Storm Updates, 24/7). There's a slight chance it still could veer farther west. But at the moment, it looks more like it will just churn up some big surf for the Carolina coast -- and have no noticeable impact at all on our weather.

Meanwhile, the hot weather has returned to our area, with a high of 94 in Roanoke Friday. A cold front will try to break the heat in the middle of next week, but probably will get hung up just north of us. It looks like summer will hold firm over us for most of the upcoming week.

Posted 8/11/05: Tropical Storm Irene may not be content to play with the fishies after all.

The storm, which was downgraded to a tropical depression and darn near fell apart entirely, kept churning Tuesday and Wednesday to regain tropical storm strength.

Once thought to be likely to turn out to sea, Irene appears to be on a course to gain hurricane strength and flirt with the East Coast.

High pressure is expected to strengthen near Bermuda over the next few days. This high is likely to keep Irene from being able to turn north quickly. Rather, clockwise rotation around the high may take Irene around the high's edges on a west-northwest, then northwest path that will bring the storm somewhere in the vicinity of the Carolinas' coast by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

But Irene will also be affected by air masses over the continental United States. A cold front is expected to move southeast from the Upper Midwest and stall somewhere near or just north of our area by early next week, as the mid-Atlantic region's role as the "graveyard of cold fronts" continues.

Southwesterly winds aloft blowing ahead of this cold front, and around the western edge of the Bermuda high, may act to turn Irene to the north and northeast eventually.

What is in doubt at this point is when exactly this will happen. The key to the forecast on whether Irene makes an East Coast landfall hinges on being able to pinpoint when this turn will occur.

Irene could plow hard into the Carolinas, then turn only after it is inland. That could be spread flooding rains, gusty winds and a tornado threat far inland, possibly into Southwest Virginia, and throughout the Eastern states.

Irene could turn just before it would otherwise make landfall. This could lead it to scrape the Outer Banks of North Carolina like so many hurricanes do, then whisk northeastward out to sea away from the coast.

Or, Irene could turn while it is still out to sea. This would mean great surfing waves for the Outer Banks and otherwise minimal effects on the East Coast.

At this point, a close scrape with the Outer Banks appears the most likely of the options. If you have travel plans to the North Carolina coast in the early to middle part of next week, keep tabs on this developing weather situation. Much is left to be said about Irene's eventual strength, too. It's rapidly becoming better organized as of this writing on Thursday. Building high pressure aloft and the warm waters of the Gulf Stream east of the U.S. coast do favor its intensification to at least minimal hurricane status, and possibly even stronger than that.

Unless the most westerly options of its track are realized, Irene may very well scoot east of Southwest Virginia and not have much effect. But southwest winds are likely to bring Gulf of Mexico moisture back in force by early next week, so it'll probably be another tropically humid and showery week, regardless of Irene's whims.