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.

June's heavy rains top year's list of biggest weather in S.W. Va.

It's time to wrap up 2006. Here are my 10 picks, in order of significance, for the biggest Southwest Virginia weather events of 2006.

1. Late June deluge

From June 23-27, a low-pressure system off the southeast coast fed a steady diet of tropical air westward into Southwest Virginia's mountains. The result was day after day of heavy rain.

Blacksburg got 9.41 inches during those five days on the way to a monthly rain total in June of 10.96 inches, making it the rainiest month on record there. Roanoke had 6.98 inches in the June 23-27 period, including 4.08 inches on June 26 alone.

Regrettably, there was one fatality, an 8-year-old girl in Alleghany County who got caught in a swollen creek.

Southwest Virginia was in the early stages of drought when the rains came, so flooding was not as severe as it could have been.

The two months after the heavy rain were much drier than normal, so June 23-27, in effect, prevented what could have been a prolonged and severe drought.

And then there was that one iconic image: The Roanoke River entering Victory Stadium one final time, with one bleacher section demolished, the other still standing.

2. July microbursts

On July 3, high winds from what is believed to be a thunderstorm microburst ripped the roof off of the Go-Race Motorcycle and ATV Service in Elliston, throwing the roof into U.S. 460.

A little more than two weeks later, on July 19, an intense microburst in downtown Roanoke caused about $200,000 damage to the Virginia Museum of Transportation, peeling off a large portion of its roof. At least four other downtown buildings were damaged, two heavily.

3. Early August heat wave

Roanoke's high of 99 on Aug. 2 was the hottest day in seven years and also set a new record for the date. Roanoke had a high temperature of 95 or above each of the first four days of August, and 93 or above from July 30-Aug. 4. The nights were also muggy, with low temperatures of 77 on Aug. 3 and 76 on Aug. 4 just barely missing the all-time record for warmest low, 78 on July 7, 1977.

4. Warm January 5. Warm December

These months when winter was a no-show were bookends to a warm year in which all but three months averaged warmer than normal.

January's average temperature of 43.5 was 7.7 degrees above normal in Roanoke, the fifth warmest on record. Blacksburg's average temperature of 39.8 was 8.9 degrees above normal there, the second warmest January on record.

Through Thursday, December's average of 45 degrees put it more than 5 degrees above normal and on track to finish as one of the five warmest Decembers on record in Roanoke. Blacksburg, about 4 degrees above normal at 39.1 degrees, was also on track for one of its five warmest Decembers.

6. Cool early fall

Not everything was warm about 2006. In sharp contrast to recent autumns, September and October were both below average in temperature.

In fact, September's average high temperature in Roanoke of 74.2 was the coolest on record. The month as a whole averaged 2.6 degrees below normal in Roanoke at 65.1 degrees, while Blacksburg was 2.1 degrees below normal at 60.9 degrees. Both locations were also about a degree below normal in October.

7. November extremes

It's easy to pinpoint the time when a cool fall gave way to a warm late fall/early winter.

On Nov. 4, Roanoke set a record low of 24 degrees, its only record low of the year. On Nov. 10 and 11, Roanoke set record high temperatures of 78 and 79. Except for one week of sharp chill in early December, the trend has been decidedly warm ever since.

8. February snowstorm

Winter was tardy, but made a significant appearance Feb. 11. A winter storm moving up the East Coast dumped 5 to 9 inches of snow across Southwest Virginia. The same storm intensified a few hours later, causing a historic winter storm that gave New York City its heaviest 24-hour snowfall on record of 26.9 inches.

9. Late September hailstorm

On Sept. 28, a severe thunderstorm, exhibiting some rotation on Doppler radar, dumped large amounts of small hail in parts of northern Roanoke County and southern Botetourt County. So much hail fell that it looked like a snowfall had occurred in some locations.

10. Tropical Storm Ernesto

Ernesto, tracking along the Outer Banks of North Carolina and into southeast Virginia, resulted in 1.72 inches of rain Aug. 31-Sept. 1 in Roanoke. But Ernesto was the only named storm to have a direct effect on Southwest Virginia in an Atlantic tropical season that fell far short of forecasts, with only 10 total named storms and no hurricanes making landfall in the United States.