Heat-breaking stormsPosted May31, 2006 at 10:33 AMThose thunderstorms may have experienced this morning or at least heard off in the distance were moving to the southwest ... that's one of the most unusual directions storms can move in these parts. The development of this morning's thunderstorms is a signal that the upper atmospheric ridge that has kept a dome of record heat on us the last couple of days is loosening its grip. A small disturbance circulating southwestward around the edge of it, combined with the minimal surface heat of the morning hours, increasing moisture and some lift along the higher terrain of the Blue Ridge, was enough to trigger thunderstorms as the warm-air cap aloft weakened. It will be a sticky day, maybe even feeling worse than the last two, but no record highs today. Showers and thunderstorms, mostly in the afternoon, will become commonplace until a front brings cooler, drier weather by the weekend. Keep track of the showers and thunderstorms on National Weather Service radar. It poured at my place this morning. What about at yours? Feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me. It did it againPosted May30, 2006 at 05:22 PMBlacksburg set a new record high for the second straight day, hitting 89. Roanoke tied its record high of 93 today, after setting a record with a high of 93 on Memorial Day. We saw a few more thundershowers, and even one severe thunderstorm in North Carolina, pop up in the heat today, and that will be a sign of things to come as moisture deepens and this hot high pressure area begins slowly losing its grip on us. But expect a couple more hot, humid days before more typical temperatures return for the weekend. Another stab at a recordPosted May30, 2006 at 09:40 AMSitting another day under this dome of warm, dry air aloft, temperatures will make another run at record highs today. It will be a bit more difficult today, though, as the records for May 30 are a little bit higher than those of May 29 ... 93 in Roanoke dating to 1969, 87 in Blacksburg dating to 1953. But it will be a close call under hazy, mid-summer-like sunshine. After today, the warm air aloft will erode some and more moisture will creep in. We'll likely see more afternoon clouds and even some showers and thunderstorms, so we'll be less likely to have record heat in upcoming days. Still, a summerlike regime will hold our weather pattern for much of this week. Record highs!Posted May29, 2006 at 05:13 PMTemperatures have indeed climbed today to record highs for the date in Roanoke (93), Blacksburg (87) and Bluefield, W.Va., (88) according to the National Weather Service in Blacksburg. Another day of bright sunshine under a high pressure system may produce similar temperatures on Tuesday. 90 degrees today?Posted May29, 2006 at 11:33 AMThis Memorial Day has a good chance to be our first 90-degree day of 2006 in Roanoke ... and Tuesday will have a similarly good chance to hit 90 as well. We haven't had a 90-degree day since it hit 92 on Sept. 23 of last year. Sunday's high of 88 is our highest temperature to date in 2006 ... and that was only two degrees below the May 28 record of 90 set in 1955. The record high temperature for May 29 in Roanoke is 91 in 1991 ... so tying or breaking a record today is certainly within reach. Blacksburg's record for May 29 is 84, also set in 1991 ... that, too, is definitely in play today. Blacksburg hit 84 on Sunday, but that was three degrees short of the May 28 record. Bluefield, West Virginia, set a record high of 86 on Sunday. Normal high temperatures for May 29 are 79 in Roanoke and 75 in Blacksburg. This little mini-heat wave is unlikely to keep May from being a cooler-than-normal month overall, however, as 16 of the previous 28 days have had below normal temperatures. Click here to follow Roanoke's current conditions and Blacksburg's current conditions today. Meanwhile back home ... it's dryPosted May28, 2006 at 01:30 PMAdjusting to everyday life back home again after the daily energy and motion of a storm chase trip is difficult. We returned to Southwest Virginia Friday night after an amazingly succesful storm chase trip that defied one of the least conducive May weather patterns for severe weather in recent memory. We drove long hours and clawed and fought for some interesting storms, and the good attitude and enthusiasm of everyone on board was priceless. Our best catch was in Illinois ... but we also scored some interesting storms in North Carolina (click here and here), South Dakota and Wisconsin. The tornado count, as is often the case, is murky ... could be anywhere from zero to 5. I'll have more about that in the future, along with some other photos/video as we dig into what we captured. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, it's been plenty dry here. We've had about half of our normal May rainfall to date, and Roanoke Regional Airport is running nearly 8 inches below normal in precipitation. The lack of severe weather in the Plains states and the dryness here are related to the same progression of weather patterns that resulted in the Gulf of Mexico being scoured clean of deeply moist air at mid-month. It's having a hard time recovering. It may take something tropical to turn our rainfall fortunes around. Hurricane season officially begins Thursday. Frustrating dayPosted May26, 2006 at 08:47 AMOur storm chase team placed ourselves almost perfectly for erupting supercells in western Indiana on Thursday, but "almost" isn't good enough in hilly, forested terrain with a poor road network. A supercell storm that may have spawned a tornado went up less than 15 miles south of Terre Haute, Indiana, where we had stopped for re-evaluation, but we couldn't get around to the southeast of it where we needed to be before the storm fused into a line and rocketed away. We're headed back home today. One thing I haven't done that I should is to list the members of our team, who have done a tremendous job in having some amazing storm intercepts in a weather pattern not conducive to a lot of severe weather. Dave Carroll, Pulaski County High School meteorology teacher, trip co-leader A gustnado?Posted May25, 2006 at 01:12 AM
We had another intriguing day today in Wisconsin where we were within a mile or so of a sudden circulation that wrapped up tightly in a thunderstorm, possibly a brief tornado. Hope to have more on that later. Big, mean squall linePosted May24, 2006 at 08:10 AM
We also witnessed a few more "gustnadoes," including one large one that was reported to the National Weather Service by several spotters as a tornado. We did see some rotation in the clouds above the swirl on the ground, but weren't convinced enough to call it a tornado ourselves. Back in the High PlainsPosted May22, 2006 at 08:42 AMWe're in McCook, Nebraska, on this Monday morning after chasing some High Plains convection that kicked out some "gustnadoes" -- swirls of dust on the ground induced by strong downdrafts -- and one severe storm with large hail that we were only able to tag along with at late evening before a gorgeous amber sunset under a "bow echo" storm approaching us from the west. Looks like we're in for 2 extremely busy days in this region. Follow along with us on our storm chase page. Amazing chasePosted May18, 2006 at 08:59 AM
We spend the third day, on Tuesday, touring the April 2 tornado path scenes in Caruthersville, Mo., and Marmaduke, Ark., a sobering reminder to all of us of what heartache tornadoes can cause. We also caught some nice pulse storms with shelf clouds and cumulonimbus clouds scraping the open skies of the Missouri Bootheel. A nice day that ended with catfish in my hometown of Jonesboro, Ark. 
From a weather pattern that has been meager for severe weather, our jaws dropped at the beauty of the spectacle that unfolded. We don't know if a tornado actually touched the ground, and will review our video carefully, but several low rotating masses descended from the layered wall clouds we watched. UPDATE: Watch a video clip of the storm Link to photo I shot of Illinois mesocylone. 
Pictured in the photo are Stephanie Taylor, the Pulaski County High School senior who shot the other two pictures I used, and Lorenza Cooper, a rising senior at Virginia Tech. We're in Joplin, Mo., now, after a busted chase day in southeast Missouri, and slim prospects for thunderstorms the next couple of days. We saw a tornado, apparentlyPosted May16, 2006 at 10:27 AMLook at the picture again in the previous day's entry ... look at the ground underneath below the thin funnel at the upper left. There's a whirl of dust/dirt/clouds/debris at the ground under the funnel. Apparently, what we saw was in fact a tornado, with a circulation extending to the ground. UPDATE 5/21: Here is a link to a larger version of the photo from a video still of the funnel cloud/possible tornado we observed near Durham, N.C. A weird chase dayPosted May15, 2006 at 08:32 AM
Dave Carroll and I made a decision to spend the first day of our chase trip purusing storms in North Carolina rather than traveling through placid weather to the west. This was unprecedented in the history of the student chase trips that Carroll has led off and on during the last 15 years for high school and college students. We barely had everyone picked up at Blacksburg and Pulaski when severe thunderstorm warnings started flying for the New River Valley. But we wanted none of these storms, as they were clustering together. We passed through Roanoke at about 11 a.m. (did you see our maroon, antenna-laden vans?) as we headed south to Danville for re-evaluation. 
It was a strange day ... heading east on the first leg of a trip to the Great Plains, chasing in trees and hills, and across a metro area. But it gave all the students a crash course in chasing, and made for a couple of very tired drivers! Now, we will really head west and see if this pattern can yet change and yield some severe storms on the open Plains. Follow the storm chasersPosted May13, 2006 at 10:29 PMStorm chaser documentaries cut out days of traveling and quiet days, presenting a misleading image of constant storm action. The 2006 storm chase team, a group of nine college and high schools students and 3 team leaders headed out of Blacksburg on Sunday morning (May 14) for the heart of Tornado Alley in what is supposed to be the peak time of the season, is driving smack into a weather pattern that is almost totally not conducive for severe weather. Cool air from Canada has almost completely scoured out the warm, Gulf of Mexico moisture needed for storms. We'll have to find table scraps our first week and look for possible changes in the weather pattern late in our first week or during our second. Follow along with us on our Storm Chase 2006 page and on a Virginia Tech blog. Also, I will make occasional updates on here, about every two or three days or so. The "s" word is backPosted May12, 2006 at 10:22 AMSnow, that is. But only for elevations above 5,000 feet in northwest North Carolina and southwest Virginia ... essentially, in Virginia, that means the top of Mount Rogers. On Sunday night and Monday, the core of the unseasonably cold air aloft will be spinning right over Southwest Virginia. Enough of that cold air might be forced downward to chill things enough for a touch of slushy snow at the very highest elevations. Mountain Lake, the peak of Sharp Top and even the summit of Poor Mountain here in Roanoke County would have a shot at it if the snow level sinks a bit lower. Snow in May at our highest elevations is not common, but it's not unheard of either. I was on Mount Rogers in late May 2002 when some snow showers occurred with an unseasonably cold air mass.
Gusty showersPosted May11, 2006 at 02:27 PM5-11-06, 2:30 p.m. Severe thunderstorms possible ThursdayPosted May10, 2006 at 05:16 PM
The inset forecast weather map from the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center for Thursday shows Southwest Virginia in what is known as the "warm sector" of the storm system centered on the low to our northwest. If this pans out as expected, we would be south of the warm front to the north, shown draped across central Virginia (the red line with round humps), and east of the cold front (the blue line with triangular points), shown to our west. If the daytime sunshine warms our temperatures into the 70s or higher, there will likely be enough instability for thunderstorms to begin to build. With the lift of the approaching cold front, abundant Gulf of Mexico moisture, and strong winds aloft, powerful thunderstorms may begin to rotate, increasing the chances of hail, high winds and isolated tornadoes. The Storm Prediction Center has placed us in a slight risk of severe weather for Thursday. Keep up to date with the latest on the SPC site, the National Weather Service-Blacksburg site, and of course, here on the Weather Journal blog. Unseasonably cool weather continuesPosted May09, 2006 at 04:34 PMRoanoke's high temperature of 55 on Monday was the coolest high ever recorded for May 8, beating the previous record of 56 set in 1978. As of this writing on Tuesday afternoon, we're sitting at only 58. Some high mountain locations in the area have failed to get out of the 40s. In Wednesday's Weather Journal column, I will discuss the blocked pattern in the upper atmosphere that promises to continue this trend of cooler than normal weather for several days. We may warm enough just enough the next couple of days to trigger some thunderstorms as cool air is reinfoced late in the week. Chilly returnsPosted May07, 2006 at 06:45 PMToday (Sunday, May 7) was a chilly, damp day unlike any we've had in a while. The high temperature in Roanoke was 60 degrees ... but that's misleading, as it occurred at midnight, and the rest of day was colder, falling to 48 in the afternoon rain. The warmest it got during the actual daylight hours today was 55. Taking the 60 as our daily high temperature, we haven't had a day this chilly since March 27. We had nine days in January that were warmer. You better get used to this. We'll have some sunny, warmer days in between, but the overall pattern for the next 7-10 days suggests chilly, damp days are likely to be a recurring theme. I'll discuss the pattern in more detail later this week. Weather service newsletterPosted May06, 2006 at 11:06 AMThe National Weather Service in Blacksburg puts out an online newsletter covering a wide variety of topics. The current newsletter, for spring-summer 2006 looks back at the winter just past, examines the new enhanced Fujita scale of tornado intensity (which I covered in an April 29 column), discusses severe weather and looks ahead to the summer and hurricane season. It's worth a read. In fact, the whole National Weather Service-Blacksburg Web site is worth a visit. We keep it permanently linked in the right margin here on the Weather Journal blog page for your convenience. Storm photosPosted May04, 2006 at 04:34 PM
So here they are. The first shot is of a wall cloud, or lowered cloud base, on the back side of the storm near Clarkton, Mo. This is in the northern Missouri Bootheel ... that little part of Missouri that sticks down into Arkansas. This wall cloud formed with the second tornado warning that was issued within an hour for the same area. I observed rapid rotation in the clouds with each radar-detected possible tornado, and got this shot as the late evening sun peeked under the clouds to the west and cast a rosy glow on a menacing wall cloud.
My thanks to Dave Carroll back in Blacksburg for providing me radar support as I chased this storm. Dave teaches meteorology at Pulaski County High School and leads the annual storm chasing trip for college and high school students that we covered last year. I'm looking forward to joining him and his students again in a couple of weeks on a 2-week trip to the Great Plains for a storm chase sponsored by Virginia Tech. Chasing stormsPosted May01, 2006 at 11:31 AMI'm in Arkansas to visit my parents a few days ... and leave my doggie with them so I can go on a 2-week storm chase trip sponsored by Virginia Tech later this month ... but I made time on Sunday to chase a severe storm that spawned a tornado in southeast Missouri. I saw some rotating wall clouds and a couple of funnel clouds, one that I got a picture of. Hope to share more with you later this week when I get back. |
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.....
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Here is a video still of a large gustnado we encountered in Colorado on Sunday, just to show you what one looks like. Kinda looks like a tornado, eh? It was rotating, but it's just dust at the surface spun up in an eddy of the outflow from the thunderstorm.
An unusually potent setup for severe thunderstorms appears to be on tap for Thursday, as a strong cold front intersects warm, moist air.
Back in Virginia now on Thursday, I promised a few photos from my chase last Sunday (April 30) of a severe thunderstorm in southeast Missouri that eventually became warned for a possible tornado, based on National Weather Service Doppler radar out of Memphis.
The second shot is a funnel cloud that occurred not long after I shot the wall cloud. With sunlight running out, it's dark and grainy, but you can make out a funnel. It did not touch down, and dissipated rather quickly after this photo was taken.
The final shot is a photo of a rapidly developing lowered cloud base, or wall cloud, I observed earlier in the afternoon as the storm traversed the Arkansas-Missouri border region. I watched rapid updrafts with this cloud mass, and this occurred not long before the storm suddenly increased in intensity and began spitting out hail about the size of quarters. I heard some of that pinging off my truck.
