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Never mind the "offiicial" start of the season on Sunday, June 1. A weak tropical storm, named Arthur, formed today just off the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico and moved inland. So we're under way in what is expected to be a busy tropical season in the Atlantic. Remember that a busy Atlantic season doesn't guarantee that anything will hit the U.S., and a relatively inactive season can still allow a violent hurricane or two to strike the U.S. And even if multiple hurricanes do hit the U.S., there is no guarantee that we in Southwest Virginia will feel any effects, including still much-needed rainfall.

Tornado watches now cover all of Virginia except here in the southwest. One factor that will likely keep thunderstorm develop minimized across our area today is the westerly downslope wind. Winds blowing down the eastern side of the mountains tend to dry out the air and suppress convection. Dew points are in the upper 50s and low 60s in Southwest Virginia right now ... we can sometimes get some pretty big storms out of that kind of moisture, under the right conditions, but not as easily as with the upper 60s and lower 70s dew points farther east. In the tornado watch area, winds blowing out of the south and southwest may be able to give the storms that develop there a little bit of a turn, so some hail, high winds and isolated tornadoes are possible, hence the tornado watch. The stronger wind dynamics throughout the atmosphere are much farther north, in the tornado watch that was issued earlier today for northern Virginia. In Southwest Virginia, don't be surprised to see a few showers and maybe a thunderstorm or two this evening as a cold front moves into the area. While some gusty winds or small hail are possible, a widespread severe weather episode appears increasingly unlikely for our immediate area.

UPDATE NOON SATURDAY: A tornado watch is in effect for northern Virginia and surrounding states, as this statement and map from the Storm Prediction Center shows. We'll see how and if any of this threat spreads our way later today.

Severe weather has been dogging the central U.S. for much of the last nine days. Some of that threat will extend eastward toward Virginia on Saturday as a cold front approaches the region. As the inset map shows, areas in red with a slightly higher risk of severe weather (30 percent within 30 miles of any given point), the higher chances of severe weather will be to the west and east of us. To the east, a weak area of low pressure developing east of the mountains might pull enough backed winds from the east to create some rotation that could lead to large hail, strong winds and perhaps a few tornadoes. We'll have to watch on Saturday to see where these storms begin developing, whether they will be along or just east of the Blue Ridge. A larger complex of storms from the west may affect Southwest Virginia late in the afternoon or in the evening, bringing a threat of gusty winds and some hail. Now that temperatures are climbing into the 80s and some moisture is returning, we shouldn't be surprised by occasional threats of thunderstorms, some of which could be severe from time to time.

Check the Storm Prediction Center and the National Weather Service at Blacksburg on Saturday for the latest on severe weather threats in our area.

It will take months to analyze the video and photos and digest all the experiences from Storm Chase 2008. But for the most part in this blog, I'm ending the discussion of it today. Compared to previous storm chases, this was certainly the most prolific of the four I've been a part of in terms of tornado production, and also in terms of truly powerful supercell thunderstorms. I think many of the storms we caught in 2007 were structurally more photogenic, but these were definitely more beast-like in sheer power.

So far, in regard to tornadoes, I've only posted photos of our major tornado intercept late on May 22. If you haven't already, click here to see video and an account of that day. I am also writing about that encounter in Friday's "Weather Journal" column for print. I don't have photos of all of our tornado sightings, which we conservatively count as nine over May 22-23, all in the same general area of west-central Kansas from WaKeeney and Quinter south to Ness City and Dighton.

The first tornado we caught didn't even have a full condensation funnel, but just a slight cone above and a swirl of dust in a field below.

This is a photo near the time of our second tornado, though maybe not exactly when it was on the ground. You can see the rounded, lowered structure from which it sprang ahead of us.

Tornado No. 3 developed on a storm in between the first one we were chasing and the second we were planning to intercept. We had seen the lowerings and considered it to have potential, but considered it harder to reach between two other storms. Before heading south to the next storm, we watched a tornado develop west of Quinter, Kan., near a town called Grainfield. We were at some distance, but saw a cone dip down and eventually turn into more of a rope-like structure.

Two tornadoes developed in the storm we headed south to intercept southwest of WaKeeney. Tornado No. 4 was a white cone against a dark background. It doesn't look to be on the ground in the linked photo, but video shows a debris cloud at the surface, confirming touchdown.

Tornado No. 5 was a dark funnel against a dark background, a little hard to make out, but menacing. Here is another look at the same tornado a few minutes earlier. We encountered screaming east winds blowing into this storm as these tornadoes were going on. Both No. 4 and No. 5 were on the ground at the same time for a little while.

I don't have photos of the sixth and seventh tornadoes that formed in the same storm as it moved north of Interstate 70. We were on the move, and they were hard to see on a poor contrast background. We'll be looking at video and some of the other chasers' photos for these. The count could go up or down based on what we see in video.

Tornado No. 8 was the big intercept for us. The entry on my blog after that day and my Weather Journal column for May 30 best recount that, but here is one additional photo by Jordan Rollins showing the tornado out our front windshield. That's me taking a photo on the left.

Tornado No. 9 the next day was very large the next day, moving northeast near Ransom, Kan., on its way toward Ellis, but also very far away and very late. We still haven't found a great shot of it, but this video still frame showing part of it on the left gives you an idea of its size. We'll keep looking. (ADDED ON 6/2: Click here for a small video still from the wedge tornado ... and here's a second shot of the same wedge as well, which may even be multivortex with a couple of side funnels.)

In all we chased and caught supercell storms on 5 days: May 13 near Jacksboro in northern Texas; May 14 near Big Spring in western Texas (with additional video linked here); May 21 near Flagler in eastern Colorado (the prettiest storm, in my opinion); and of course May 22 and May 23 in and around WaKeeney, Kan.

Thanks to the wonderful group of chasers that joined us this year, shown here in a group photo at Palo Duro Canyon near Amarillo, Texas, during one of our many slow days between chases. From left to right, they are (bottom row) Jessica Burchard, Virginia Tech student; Sandy LaCorte, recent North Carolina-Asheville graduate (meteorologist!); Taylor White, Tech student; Marielle Taft, Walt Whitman High School student in Maryland; Morgan Weeks of Floyd, North Carolina-Asheville student; Jennifer Henderson, Tech instructor researching a book on tornadoes; (top row) Dave Carroll, Pulaski County High School meteorology teacher and trip leader; Joel Willis, Pulaski County High School student; Andrew Smith, Tech student; Trevor Owen, Tech student; me; and Jordan "J-Roll" Rollins, Tech student and National Guardsman.

For a little bit different perspective on our trip, check out the blogs kept by Taylor White and Sandy LaCorte.

America is in good hands with young people like these ... and with the many wonderful people who treated us so friendly in our travels. We were greeted everywhere we went, and many people, ranging from farmers to police to travelers to firemen, came to us seeking information about storms. God bless all of you.

Now ... let's turn back to local weather ... and there is actually a potential severe weather threat cropping up for Virginia come Saturday ... more on that as it develops ...

Re-trace Kevin's progress on this map.

For more on Storm Chase 2008, click here.

I wrote a little about how May was following the trend of most months the last two years in this morning's Weather Journal update in the Roanoke Times. Well, we are getting a pretty widespread rainfall this morning, as an upper-level disturbance moving across Tennessee throws some Gulf of Mexico moisture up over slightly cooler air near the surface. This is called "overrunning" and is common in some of our cooler months, but a little less frequent from late spring through summer. Don't expect a lot of rain, but a few tenths of an inch to maybe locally a half-inch to three-quarters of an inch will be welcome, especially falling slowly as it is. We trail our normal rainfall for the year by nearly 6 inches, so we still have some ground to make up.

The storm chase team arrived back in Blacksburg at about 4 p.m. today. After a round of hugs and goodbyes, we scattered to our respective homes. I'm very happy to be back with my wife and in my home after more than two weeks away, but the first day or two back always feels a little strange with no target zone to drive to and no chase team meetings. I have no doubt I'll miss the members of this very special team that experienced so much together.

There is still much video and photos to go through as we analyze the storms we saw during this trip.

And I'll be getting back to examining Southwest Virginia weather, too. It was sticky when I got home today, which is unlike the last couple of weeks that had some cool days.

Follow Kevin's progress on this map.

The most recent video from Storm Chase 2008 was posted May 23. It shows a tornado near WaKeeney, Kansas.

For more on Storm Chase 2008, click here.

RICHMOND, Ind. -- There is always a time on these storm chasing trips for them to end. Sometimes, there is an obvious break in the stormy pattern when it's time to move east. This year, it simply came down to the budget. Higher prices for gas and lodging led us to a decision on Sunday morning to return to Virginia on Memorial Day. So this is the last night that this particular chase team will be together. There is a certain amount of sadness that comes with that, as this group has bonded so well and experienced so much together over the past couple of weeks. But this has been an intense and memorable trip, one that each of us will need some time to digest. The stories will be retold for a lifetime, and the lessons learned by each of us will also last that long.

Not far from where we were in the morning, tornadoes have killed at least 8 people in Iowa and Minnesota. The nation's tornado death toll has topped 100 in a year for the first time since 1998, and we're not even to the halfway mark yet.

Severe weather looks likely to occur over many of the next several days in the nation's mid-section. But it is time for each of us to return to our lives in the East, all the while keeping a wary eye to the sky, knowing firsthand what havoc mere wind can wreak.

Follow Kevin's progress on this map.

The most recent video from Storm Chase 2008 was posted May 23. It shows a tornado near WaKeeney, Kansas.

For more on Storm Chase 2008, click here.

NEWTON, Iowa -- Not much to write about today. We traveled to central Nebraska, where storms were expected to fire along the dryline. A few weak storms shot up to our north, racing away fast, and they weren't worth going after. We found one lone little cell all to itself south of Grand Rapids, a pretty little towering cumulus cloud trying its best to morph into a low-precipitation supercell. But some things were missing today -- moisture, swept away by a big mass of storms that moved across the Plains overnight Friday and early Saturday, and instability. The "cap," a warm layer of air aloft that inhibits convection, never did blast open like it easily did in Kansas the last two days. It didn't feel stormy to Dave Carroll and me as we stepped out of the vans in Grand Island, Neb. -- it was too cool and dry, not warm and sticky. Our little cell tried hard, but eventually poofed out near Grand Island.

Meanwhile, things went ballistic in Oklahoma.

We got in after midnight in central Iowa. There may be one last shot at storms on Sunday in or near eastern Iowa, but it's looking like there's a good chance that the meat of this chase trip is past. With all the long days and late nights, we really haven't had much of a chance to cycle through all the images and video we've taken, not to mention our individual thoughts and feelings about what we've seen and experienced. It will be a while to sort through this very intense chase trip.

Follow Kevin's progress on this map.

The most recent video from Storm Chase 2008 was posted May 23. It shows a tornado near WaKeeney, Kansas.

For more on Storm Chase 2008, click here.

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- I only saw it for a few minutes, but that's as long as I needed to know I didn't want to mess with it. Early Friday evening, we saw a huge "wedge" tornado between Ness City and Ellis, Kan., at least our ninth tornado of the trip. A wedge doesn't look like a funnel or rope, but is essentially a big cylinder of cloud on the ground, sometimes a half-mile wide or more. This tornado moved along a very long path in central Kansas, and we have heard reports that it may have struck Ellis, Kan. It was on the second supercell thunderstorm we intercepted. The first spawned a tornado that caused some damage in Gove County, Kan., but we really couldn''t see it, though we saw some amazing circulation with that storm. We kept a wide berth from the wedge tornado, seeing it only at a distance. Perhaps, in time, I'll get a photo up, though I didn't even take one myself,. as low to the ground it was and as late in the day as it was.

The end of the day found us east of the same storm that spawned the wedge tornado, as tornado sirens sounded eerily while driving through Hays, Kan. As strong wind gusts rocketed past us toward the tornado somewhere in the murky storm milesto our west, a couple of fire and rescue workers from Hays pulled up beside us to get information on the storms. Fortunately for them, the storm was slipping just west of Hays.

It's another tired post-chase late night and the next day could be another stormy one, though farther east. That's why we're in Manhattan, Kan., tonight, likely to slip into eastern Nebraska on Sunday.

Follow Kevin's progress on this map.

The most recent video from Storm Chase 2008 was posted May 23. It shows a tornado near WaKeeney, Kansas.

For more on Storm Chase 2008, click here.

WaKEENEY, Kan. -- Words are not exactly swirling through my mind at nearly midnight after today's storm chase of a lifetime in western Kansas. We saw EIGHT tornadoes in a single afternoon and evening, as we tagged supercell after supercell riding along roughly the same track, just southwest and west of here. But it will always be the day's last intercept that will be best remembered, as we watched a tornado cross the road less than a mile in front of us as the day's late light and the storm's ample precipitation in the form of rain and hail provided an amber background. Unfortunately, we would experience a little too much of that rain and hail ourselves, propelled by winds approaching 80 mph. The narrow road and other chase vehicles did not allow us to turn and leave fast enough as the tornado swirled a band of rain and hail around it's backside. So, we got "hooked." We were swallowed by the blinding rain and pounded by hail, most of it dime-sized, but with a few golfball-sized chunks mixed in. The vans became separated, as Dave Carroll's van was near the rear and able to get back on the highway first (literally by backing up down the gravel road). He eased toward a gravel road that turned east, enabling him to escape the hook faster. I could only pull on to the side of the highway and let the tempest past, as it shook the vans and blasted them with hail. Eventually, via radio and cellphone, Dave and Andrew Smith were able to guide me to the same road they were on, as the rain, wind and hail finally slackened with the storm rocketing northward.

I'm sure I'll have much more to write about this day, and more pictures to show, in the future, but for now, I just need a good night's rest.

Follow Kevin's progress on this map.

The previous video from Storm Chase 2008 was posted May 22.

For more on Storm Chase 2008, click here.