UPDATE 6 PM, 7/1: Overnight storms possible; starting to see some cracks in the heat dome as July gets off to sizzling start
Weather Journal column: “Derecho” transits into public lexicon
Continued coverage of the aftermath of Friday’s derecho event in Southwest Virginia
Latest from the National Weather Service on overnight storms
UPDATE 6 PM, 7/1: A cluster of storms on the Ohio/Indiana line — possibly connecting to additional storms developing elsewhere in the Ohio Valley — may affect our region by late evening or overnight, generally 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. A severe thunderstorm watch is in effect as far southeast as Charleston WVa now, and may be extended farther southeast later. Roanoke’s high has only reached 97 as of 5 p.m., thanks to clouds and breezes produced by the storm cluster that caused lots of wind damage in the I-77 corridor south of Wytheville earlier today. Unless the mercury can find 4 degrees of warming before dark from the 96 reported at 5 p.m., the 100-degree streak will not continue for a third day, and there is a pretty good chance we will not see another 100-degree high for the next 2 weeks as the pattern gradually changes and the core of the heat dome slowly moves west. Several hot days in the 90s are likely this week, though, with periods of storms sliding southeastward from the Ohio Valley. END UPDATE
UPDATE 1:15 PM: A new severe thunderstorm watch has been issued for Southside counties — as far west as Franklin and Henry — as the storm cluster continues moving southeast and a few new isolated storms develop. An injury was reported from a falling tree at Rural Retreat Lake, and there are numerous reports of trees and power lines down along the I-77 and I-81 corridors south of Wytheville. Meanwhile, clouds and breezes from those storms have halted the temperature climb, for now, in the Roanoke and New River valleys. Roanoke has dropped from 96 at noon to 92 at 1 p.m. — the 100-degree streak may not make it to 3. Also of note, new storms are developing in northern Illinois and northwestern Indiana — worth watching for possible effects on Southwest Virginia by this evening, if they organize and get propelled southeastward. END UPDATE
UPDATE 12 NOON: The storm cluster is moving southeast down the Interstate 77 corridor — wind gusts of up to 68 mph have been recorded. The path is very similar to many of Saturday afternoon’s storms. The storms will track well south of Roanoke and Blacksburg, but additional storms may develop with daytime heating. END UPDATE
UPDATE 10:20 AM: SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH UNTIL 3 PM FROM ROANOKE/BLACKSBURG SOUTH TO NORTHERN NC AND WEST TO FAR SOUTHWEST CORNER OF STATE A small cluster of severe storms has entered the far southwest corner of Virginia and will track eastward to southeastward through much of Southwest and Southside Virginia through mid afternoon. Strong winds and large hail are possible with these storms. Click here for the latest watches and warnings from National Weather Service-Blacksburg. Also, follow the storms on the Radar / Future Cast in the right margin of this blog. END UDPATE
Weather Journal column: “Derecho” transits into public lexicon
Continued coverage of the aftermath of Friday’s derecho event in Southwest Virginia
Latest from the National Weather Service on overnight/Sunday scattered storms
Here is a the sun setting on June this evening – after a day that topped 100 again in Roanoke, underneath anvil clouds from thunderstorms in the New River Valley, all very appropriate for how the month ended. But it was a far cry from how the month as a whole went, weatherwise, locally. Despite two searing days of extreme heat, June ended up two-tenths of a degree below normal for Roanoke and four-tenths of a degree below normal at Blacksburg — essentially a “normal” month of temperature. Of course, this month — particularly the last week — proved the old adage that normal is merely the average of extremes. July will begin extremely hot, with highs again in the 90s to near 100 on Sunday, but by late Sunday we may be seeing the first signs of the hot regime being eaten away as a weak and somewhat ill-defined “cold” front slips southward into or near our region. The front may serve as a focus for more storms — probably more akin to Saturday’s scattered strong to severe storms (some large hail reports in Carroll and Tazewell counties) rather than Friday’s uncommon derecho. The front will not make a huge difference in temperature, but we’ll slowly start seeing the numbers shaved back a bit through the week as the heat ridge slowly slips back to the west and cooler air masses start edging southeastward around it. Perhaps a week or more out, this process may get vigorous enough to get us back to normal 80s highs/60s lows for a while. Forecast model indications on the long-range pattern favor shifting a lot of this heat out West while cooling the East. I wish I could tell those of you without air-conditioning it was sooner, but it may be something to hold onto to get through some long, hot days ahead.
July 1, 2012 - 12:35 AM
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Thanks for the updates, Kevin. At last the power just came back on here.
Back in Ruckersville / Barboursville and am putting our camping equipment to use because there is no power here either. We have loaded up on ice so we’re in a lot better shape than many folks around here. At least we can cook food that would have gone bad and put it on ice. Getting ready to put on some eggs and bacon.
Kevin, I had never heard of the term “derecho”. Did someone just make that up or has it been in the weather dictonary for a long time? Maybe it was coined by the same meteorologist who gave us El Nino and La Nina.
Sound like it could also have come from a b-grade movie: “Dios mio! El Derecho just rode into town!!”
Just read the first link about the origin of the Derecho. In all seriousness I thought it might have been derived from the term bow-echo which seems synonymous with the echoes that are seen on the wx radar.
Slept in late after 2 long days and woke up to a severe thunderstorm watch with a cluster of storms moving into far southwest Virginia. Blog updated.
Power came back on here in N. Rke County last night at 9:15 for us ( near Northside HS ). Really wish this heat would move out so the atmosphere would stabilize and stop firing these sever storm clusters off. I’m paranoid the powers gonna go back out, plus it hampers efforts of AEP to restore service to those poor souls still stuck in the heat. It was utterly miserable.
Here we go again. Woodlawn right in line for this storm too. Is it possible to have 3 hailstorms in less than 18hours? This one looks rough on radar. Still 15 to 20 miles away and already getting 35 mph winds. Hold on…
But be careful as to usage…Derecho and Derecha…
http://spanish.about.com/od/spanishvocabulary/a/derecho.htm
New tree damage being reported in Rural Retreat from storms today.
1 injured at Rural Retreat Lake by falling tree.
Trees and power lines down on U.S. 58 at Hillsville.
Sort of a “mini-derecho” blowing through those areas.
I’m going to sign off from the online stuff for a while on this Sunday afternoon. The storms near Chicago remain a concern for later today, if they form a complex and begin rocketing our direction like Friday.
In reply to skibum. 1. Congrats on getting your power restored!! That is ahead of the overall schedule that “7″ mentioned at 11 PM Friday, that folks should expect to be without power for at least 48 hours, and perhaps longer (although some relatively fortunate folks may get it back sooner, like you and a few others here did). 2. Thanks for giving your location. Two of our letter carriers who lost power live within 2-3 miles of Northside, so maybe they got lucky, too. 3. We Griggses were incredibly lucky this time, unlike the aftermath of the Feb. 2008 super-windstorm (we were without power for 4 days then) and during many other isolated outages. We never lost power, and had zero wind damage.
We are very sympathetic to all of you who are without the electricity. During both extreme heat and extreme cold it is essential, but I have to admit that it is more crucial now. It really struck me how understanding folks without power were that I spoke briefly to while delivering on Saturday. I lived in the metro New York City area during the big blackout of July 1977 and also in metro DC for 15 years. In both NYC and a couple of times in the District, there was considerable amount of looting when the power was off. And not all places robbed were businesses, either. Disgusting.
Charlottesville airport reported a temp of 101 last hour. That makes 3 straight days over 100 here. Many of those days folks were without power. Next time you hear someone arguing against power lines and power plants, remind them of days like this when a higher overhead and redundancy would have been extremely beneficial and would likely be a life saver for many.
Yeah, we had tree damage in Rural Retreat. The winds were pretty strong. I lost my chimney cap and some flashing off my porch. The hail was garbanzo bean size.
The Tazewell/Smyth/Wythe storms were just to our east as we were congregating for Church at the Chapel this morning. We had some minor winds, thunder and lightening and no rain. My sister lives in Marion and there was damage there and the storm produced everything but rain. One of these clusters is going to come across us before it is over and I have my generator ready to go.
Dough Griggs, I can vividly recall a time when my family were without power when I was a teen. We have lived through hurricane Bob and it knocked out the power for a week. Every evening, we would sit at the dinner table, played board game, cards, etc by the candle lights. My dad knew of a spring where we could get bathing and drinking water. It was different but it gave us some family quality time.
If I remember, it was during August, and we have a basement where we could stay cool by the candlelights.
Today, we were one of the fortunate ones that still have power. I suppose it’s one advantage of having an AEP substation down our street.
NWS has just extended the thunderstorm watch area
well into WVA. (The area Kevin alluded to earlier)
WWUS20 KWNS 012032
SEL6
SPC WW 012032
OHZ000-WVZ000-020300-
URGENT – IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH NUMBER 446
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
435 PM EDT SUN JUL 1 2012
THE NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER HAS ISSUED A
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH FOR PORTIONS OF
CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST OHIO
NORTHWEST WEST VIRGINIA
EFFECTIVE THIS SUNDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING FROM 435 PM UNTIL
1100 PM EDT.
HAIL TO 2 INCHES IN DIAMETER…THUNDERSTORM WIND GUSTS TO 70
Will have to watch for this area to be extended
toward SW and cntrl Va later this evening around midnight.
How is tomorrow looking for Roanoke city, Kevin? NWS, “7″ and the icon at the top of this page (or is that a copy of the NWS forecast?) each forecast 96, while TWC says 94. The hourly forecast from TWC indicates very light winds, 30% chance of mainly PM t-storms, and humidity levels dropping to the mid-40% range by afternoon. What say you? I have a sinking, stinking feeling I am going to be “bumped” off my scheduled riding route to the strenuous all-walking route.
Agree with Joe about watch likely extended SE later. Probably 10 p.m.-1 a.m. arrival of potential storms in our region tonight — likely NOT a derecho like Friday, but a cluster of strong to severe storms with some hail and damaging winds. For those who get the storms, more rain than we’ve seen in storms lately.
Those forecasts seem pretty good, Doug — but X factor any day will be timing of additional disturbances with storm clusters moving in from NW.
Please, PLEASE break up before arriving in WVA or VA…. I usually love thunderstorms but the threat of more high winds has me physically ill. I just stacked up 5 feet of limbs today, too.
Thanks for your comment, Trevor. Where were you living at that time? Was that the famous Hurricane Bob of 1991 that really drenched coastal New England? Or an earlier one?
I keep forgeting to mention that a very high-level official of AEP was on the local news last night, and said two incredible things. 1. That he called this a “land hurricane;” which I think was pretty appropriate in terms of the widespread and severe wind damage (obviously not accurate for rainfall amounts). And 2. that this event has caused more AEP customers to be without power than any other event in AEP’s history!!! Truly amazing. Channel 10 just gave updates on the number of customers in some locations still “powerless.” 300K in WV. 200K AEP customers in SW Virginia. 10K customers of Southside Electric Cooperative (I may have that name slightly wrong). And 500K Dominion Power customers in Virginia, mostly north of and including Richmond, I think.
And now news courtesy KM (and also A. Corfont of “10″) that a few more of us may be joining (or heaven forbid, “rejoining”) the folks without power around midnight tonight.
Mesoscale discussion
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/md/md1353.html
Severe thunderstorm watch has been issued for our region through 2 a.m.
I will be posting a new blog entry shortly to carry us into the night.
Looks like the activity around the Ohio River
around Louisville Ky would be the area to watch.
The activity in Ohio is weakening ..especially
apparent on satellite views.
I would hope some of it actually does hold together for you folks.
It would cool things off at least tonight.
Im thinking if theres anything left of the impulse itll be around 2 or 3AM..A cooling downdraft I would think might be welcome for some folks.
Hopefully Va will be visited by power and tree units from NC and elsewhere.. Im sure it would be quite welocme there.
Looks like a little break in the line has develped over Smyth County..
68F in Huntington 70F in Beckley…
Hoping Roanoke will turn into cooldown in Cooltown in a few hours.
Bluefield down to 64F!!!