Rain has helped, but is it enough?Posted Apr28, 2006 at 11:21 AM4-28-06 Jane Graham has an article today in the Roanoke Times' New River Current examining whether the recent rains have helped the long-term drought much or not. Read the article linked above for the long answer, but the short answer is some, but not enough. Also, here's the latest drought monitor map from the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Neb. You will see that the size and severity of the drought have improved some in our area and in the parched southern Plains. Oklahoma and Texas stand to get some more rain this weekend, perhaps in buckets, and we will probably follow suit early next week. But will it be enough to tide us over against the typically drier summer and early fall months? We'll see. Tornado in Scott CountyPosted Apr26, 2006 at 06:32 PM6:40 p.m. Tuesday's storms did spawn a tornado in Scott County, in far Southwest Virginia, about 7 miles west of Weber City. The following is a storm report from the National Weather Service in Morristown, Tenn., which has jurisdiction over that part of Virginia: AT APPROXIMATELY 625 PM...AN F0 TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN ON STANLEY VALLEY ROAD AND TRAVELED EAST CROSSING FRISCO ROAD...DESTROYING THREE BARNS AND UPROOTING AND SNAPPING OFF SEVERAL TREES. THE TORNADO PATH WAS 25 YARDS WIDE AND A MILE AND A HALF LONG. In another tornado note ... this just hasn't been a good month at Caruthersville, Missouri. After being devastated April 2 by a monstrous F3 tornado (see my column on that storm, linked here), an F1 tornado hit the town on Tuesday, with its path 1/4 to 1/2 mile south of the April 2 tornado path. A sleeper of a severe weather situationPosted Apr25, 2006 at 09:21 PM9:30 p.m. There have been a few severe thunderstorms in our area tonight, mostly to the south of Roanoke (Smyth, Grayson counties) and east (Lynchburg area, Appomatox County). Much of the area was under a severe thunderstorm watch earlier, but that has now been cancelled west of the Blue Ridge, including the Roanoke and New River valleys. With a cold front slamming into the warm air of a sunny afternoon, this seemed last night like it might have some potential for more widespread severe weather, but a few things were missing as the day unfolded. Mainly, the air was a little too dry for a severe weather event, and some of the upper atmospheric wind dynamics weren't as strong as they could have been. I must confess that I was so unimpressed with the severe weather potential this afternoon that I actually was asleep through most of severe thunderstorm watch ... unless I was at the office, I would be out somewhere observing if I thought there was much chance of serious severe weather. I was a bit surprised there was as much severe activity as there was, but not surprised that this didn't turn into a bigger deal. If you had any significant severe weather, add a blog comment below or drop me an email. A different spin on an Oklahoma twisterPosted Apr25, 2006 at 12:17 AMNearly all tornadoes in the Northern Hemisphere spin counterclockwise -- the same direction hurricanes, low-pressure systems, and even most small whirlwinds and dust devils spin. It's due to the Earth's rotation, called the Coriolis effect, a subject to be fully explained another day. A very small number of tornadoes, though, rotate clockwise ... like the one linked here on Oklahoma City's KFOR-TV, shown as it damages the El Reno, Oklahoma airport. Seemed like more rain than thatPosted Apr22, 2006 at 06:02 PM
As of 5 p.m., official rainfall amounts in the area seem a bit less than I was expecting: .85 inch at Roanoke, 1.01 inch at Blacksburg, 1.2 inch at Lynchburg. I don't have a rain gauge at my south Roanoke County apartment, but I'm pretty sure we got more than an inch of rain there, if not close to 2 inches. I included a photo of what was a bone-dry creek branch that swelled with muddy water and debris after heavy thunderstorms this morning. Well, this round of needed spring rain is just about over. We might get a few showers in the mountains off and on through Tuesday, when a strong cold front could touch off some more thunderstorms. After that front, we could have some of our coldest weather in weeks, maybe even some frost-and-freeze temperatures at midweek. In the muggy air that set up this rain, new records were set Friday at Roanoke and Blacksburg for the warmest low temperatures on record for the date. Blacksburg only made it down to 55, eclipsing the old mark of 54 in 1962; Roanoke tied its warmest low for the date of 62 set in 1956. And the rains came ...Posted Apr22, 2006 at 01:10 PM1:15 p.m. It looks like a good 1-2 inches of much needed rain was common across the area this morning, with some locally heavier amounts. It came a bit harder and faster than would have been ideal, but we'll take what we can get. This rain was probably enough to make at least a sizeable dent in the long-term drought, though it wasn't a cure for it, and certainly should quell the fire danger for a while. We'll see some more showers and maybe a few more rumbles of thunder the rest of today. Later this evening I'll post some official amounts as they are reported. In the meantime, feel free to email me or add a comment to this post reporting how much rain you received this morning, and noting any effects of the heavy rain you have observed. Tornado Watch for Eastern TennesseePosted Apr21, 2006 at 05:43 PM
What is likely to be an after-midnight dose of soaking rains for our area is currently making its way northeastward as a cluster of thunderstorms in Alabama. Conditions are much more unstable in north Alabama, east Tennessee, north Georgia and the far western tip of North Carolina than they are here. Temperatures are well into the 70s in that area, with dew points in the 60s ... as compared to temperatures in the 60s and dew points in the 50s here. With some conditions right in the atmosphere for some localized spin on these storms, the Storm Prediction Center has issued a tornado watch untill 11 p.m. for a section of east Tennessee including Chattanooga and Knoxville, reaching north to the Virginia-Tennessee line. (See inset map from SPC, with Roanoke as dot in upper right corner.) An outbreak on the scale of the two that killed more than 30 people in Tennessee earlier this month is not at all likely, but a few tornadoes along with lots of high wind and large hail reports appear probable. The storms will move our direction as the night wears on, but encountering much more stable air, a lot of the energy will be robbed from the storms. The moisture will be plentiful, though, with enhanced lift in our mountainous terrain. Most of Southwest Virginia will probably see an inch or more of rain tonight, with locally heavier amounts. Normally, that would raise fears of flash flooding; some isolated flooding may yet occur, but with conditions having been so dry, it probably won't be widespread. For the latest severe weather watches, click on the Storm Prediction Center watches page. Deluge to drought ...Posted Apr20, 2006 at 06:55 PM7 p.m. With much of the nation gripped in drought, surely the areas of Louisiana soaked by the big hurricanes last fall must still have abundant moisture in the soil, right? Think again ... (Associated Press) A largely rainless winter and spring followed hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which account for most of the recent rainfall, weather experts say. The drought encompasses all of the southern half of the state and gets worse as one travels south. Southeastern Louisiana, which includes the southernmost coastal parishes, is on pace for its driest January-though-April ever, said state climatologist Jay Grymes. Baton Rouge has recorded below-normal rainfall for 12 of the past 14 months — the exceptions being in August and September when Katrina and Rita hit. According to the Lincoln, Neb.-based National Drought Mitigation Center, southern Louisiana is under conditions of either severe or extreme drought — with the extreme conditions closer to the coast For more on the current state of the drought nationally, click on the U.S. Drought Monitor site. Some needed rain on the way?Posted Apr19, 2006 at 06:50 PM
Rain, did we say? We need it badly, yes ... we're 5 inches below normal for the year as of 5 p.m., and about 10 inches below normal for the past 16 months ... but would you be willing to sacrifice some of your weekend plans for it? As low pressure areas to our north and southwest link up later this week, and then trudge ever so slowly eastward, lots of Gulf of Mexico moisture will be pulled northward and, likely squeezed out. We could get a few rounds of rain and thunderstorms, really anytime from Thursday night through Sunday. I've posted a map from the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center, the headquarters for the government's national precipitation forecasters, showing what it is calling for in our area over the next 72 hours, extending through late Sunday. The light purple shade over Roanoke, marked with a dot, marks 1.5-1.75 inches of rain. The next darkest shade of purple is 1.75-2 inches, and it extends east to about the New River Valley. Further west are zones of 2-2.5 inches and 2.5-3 inches as the color deepens to red. You can find the latest HPC precipitation forecast maps linked here. An unquenchable fire seasonPosted Apr19, 2006 at 12:07 AMWith the destructive fire on Bull Mountain in Patrick County the past few days, and the big fire near Blue Ridge just a month ago, our area is getting in on what is shaping up to be, potentially, the worst fire year on record nationally, as this linked AP article describes. We need rain and lots of it. The Plains need even more than we do. Though we got some rain the past few days, we sure could use a pattern change that would bring more moisture. The long-term prognosis is still not good for that to happen. Welcome to the Weather Journal blogPosted Apr18, 2006 at 02:26 PMWeather Journal began in late 2002 as something of an online blog ... an occasional discussion of weather, updated intermittently on Roanoke.com. When it started in The Roanoke Times as a twice-weekly column in late 2003, the online version followed suit: Two regular postings a week, with some updates in between as conditions necessitated. Today, we're returning to our roots in a sense with the launch of the Weather Journal blog on Roanoke.com. I will continue to post the regular twice-weekly columns, but also plan frequent, mostly short updates here on a wide variety of weather topics -- local, national, international, past, present and future. I hope this becomes a place online where people with any inkling of an interest in weather can come to find some interesting topics, including links to other articles and Web sites. There will also be room for you to make your own comments on whatever is being discussed. Bear with me, though, as I'm new to the blogging thing, and it might take some time to find my rhythm with it. |
About this blog
Kevin Myatt works on the copy desk for The Roanoke Times and is its principal weather geek, writing a weekly weather column and advising the newsroom on weather topics. He helps guide students on a storm chasing trip to the central U.S. each May and was an editor for "Hurricanes and the Middle Atlantic States." .....Advertisement.....
|
...Advertisement...
...Advertisement...
7 p.m.
