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.

Charley took turn for the worst

It had to happen sometime.

For years, hurricane experts and emergency managers have pinpointed Florida's west coast as a nightmare waiting to happen. Finally, on Friday the 13th, it did.

Florida's west coast is usually blessed by its geography and the prevailing atmospheric currents of the Atlantic tropical region. Those currents steer tropical systems from east to west, generally. That means Florida's east coast is much more prone to hurricane hits, as with Andrew than 1992, and the west coast gets a weakened storm by the time it crosses the peninsula.

Also, storms going south of Florida in the Caribbean are more prone to keep heading west or northwest toward Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula or into the open Gulf of Mexico, threatening Texas or Louisiana. And those that do turn north can easily get shipwrecked on the mountains of Hispanola or run aground in Cuba, weakening them.

But this time around, a winter-like jet stream pattern that brought a freakishly cool August air mass deep into the South (lows in the 40s in Arkansas, 50s in Louisiana, and scores of records in several states, including a record low maximum of 71 in Roanoke on Saturday) turned Hurricane Charley away from any westward inertia and pointed him toward Florida's west coast. He crossed the narrowest, flattest part of western Cuba, losing little energy in the process, then found a warm vein of Gulf of Mexico water and some favorably calm air between major systems aloft to blossom into a historic hurricane.

The details of how Charley exploded so rapidly from a Category 2 storm with 110 mph winds to a Category 4 monster with 145 mph winds and unofficial gusts topping 170 mph will be something hurricane forecasters and atmospheric researchers will be studying for years.

Mature hurricanes often tend to pulse in intensity, going through a few hours of strengthening and then weakening. Unfortunately, just as happened with Category 5 Andrew in 1992, Charley was clearly in one of these upticks just as he headed to shore.

The right turn that took Charley into Port Charlotte/Punta Gorda rather than allowing him to continue up the coast to Sarasota, Bradenton or even the greater Tampa-St. Petersburg area was within the margin of forecasting error. Hurricane warnings were out for the area nearly two days ahead of the storm, and evacuation orders were in effect.

Many around Charlotte Harbor and barrier islands Captiva and Sanibel chose to stay, expecting a Category 2 storm that would blow on by toward Tampa. What they got instead was an inside encounter with terrifying eyewall, a whirling wall of wind and water propelled at almost NASCAR-like speeds around one of the tightest eyes that's ever been seen in a landfalling U.S. hurricane. Had Charley's been over centered right over the Mill Mountain Star, the Roanoke Regional Airport would have been getting plastered by the eyewall. Thankfully, we don't live on a coast, huh?

Suddenly, the playing field is looking much different. The tropics are alive, with two new systems, Hurricane Danielle and Tropical Storm Earl. Danielle will probably play with the fishes and never threaten anything but remote islands ships in the central Atlantic, but Earl is coming with a vengeance toward the same region of the Caribbean that gave birth to Charley.

But the abnormal trough is finally breaking down over the U.S., and more normal August weather will return for us this week. That return to normalcy also means Earl will probably speed on west below Florida, heading for a late-week date with Mexico or Texas. And normalcy is all homeless Floridians are praying for right now.