Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.

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I have traveled far and wide across the United States to find awe-inspiring storms, and I hope to do so again and again. But sometimes, jaw-dropping storms find me, living my daily routine.

Twice in the past nine days, by simply going to my regular job as a copy editor at The Roanoke Times, I have been at ground zero for impressive storms.

Most of you know by now that an intense microburst within a severe thunderstorm propelled high winds into downtown Roanoke on Wednesday, ripping a large section of roof off the Virginia Museum of Transportation and hurling the debris into both the museum's and the newspaper's parking lots.

I watched the fury of that storm from the newspaper's glass pedestrian bridge, connecting the main building to the press building over Second Street. Let's be clear: I was at the edge of the bridge, ready to jump back inside the doors if things got too dangerous.

What I saw was a whistling wind propelling droplets of rain in sheets down the street, around the bridge. Flags extended to full staff, and the bridge vibrated, rattling and crackling in the high wind. Small hailstones pinged against the bars and the glass. The traffic light standards groaned and swayed.

The wind lasted several minutes, coming in gusts, the highest topping 60 mph, in my estimation. That seems to be an appropriate guess, judging by the damage nearby. It never veered from its northerly direction, with the bulk of the storm coming from that direction. So I never once doubted that what we were experiencing was a microburst, and not a tornado.

Funny thing, I had just written about microbursts and the localized mayhem they can cause just last Saturday... and then a few days later, I'm in the middle of one.

Wednesday's storm came six days after I had the chance to watch a beautifully structured shelf cloud glide over the Roanoke Valley on the outflow of a July 13 thunderstorm that carried a warning for being severe.

The multi-tiered shelf cloud would be a neat catch on a Plains storm-chasing trip, let alone walking up a flight of stairs to a roof garden at my workplace.

It was one of the most beautiful storm structures I've seen in the Roanoke Valley since I moved here seven years ago. Blessedly, that storm was just pretty, as it left behind no significant damage in the area.

Storms always stir mixed feelings in me: wonder in their beauty, but respect for their power. It brings to mind Job 38 in the Bible, where God "answered Job out of the whirlwind" and asked him: "Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that an abundance of water may cover you? ... Can you send out lightnings, that they may go, And say to you, 'Here we are!'?"

I cannot. I can only watch and wonder.

Wednesday's storm injured no one, thankfully. But it left an expensive mess for the transportation museum to clean up, shutting it down at the time of year when it has the most visitors.

There could be more wonder and danger this weekend in our area. A large, cool air mass from Canada is body-slamming the heat that has built up over much of the country. This collision of air masses, along with abundant moisture and some relatively strong upper-level winds, is likely to trigger more thunderstorms, especially Saturday.

You may experience five-minute mayhem at your house with all its fearful fury. Or you may just hear a rumble in the distance, as someone else, somewhere else, is swarmed by the tempest.