It’s following me home! After reaching Blacksburg and working for a while to strip the equipment off three vehicles we used in the first round of the Virginia Tech storm chase, storms began to develop over the Blacksburg/Christiansburg area and followed me toward Roanoke through Shawsville and Elliston (I too the U.S. 11 route so I could pull off a few times, observe and photograph more easily). The photo at left was from between those two towns — here’s a bigger version. Storms with heavy rain, frequent lightning, some gusty winds and small hail occurred across parts of Southwest Virginia this afternoon and evening, and will slowly dwindle overnight. The thick moisture, however, will linger, and the approach of a cold front (the same front that fired storms we chased in Nebraska on Saturday — I’ll have more details on that at some point as we prepare for the second trip next week) and daytime heating will again squeeze out numerous showers and storms by Tuesday afternoon. Locally heavy rain from slow-moving storms will be the main concern, but some strong winds and hail are also possible. Wednesday and possibly Thursday look showery/stormy too, before a high-pressure ridge starts pushing us more toward warm, drier weather by the weekend.

I will start taking entries for the annual SUMMER FORECAST CONTEST now through May 31. Email weather@roanoke.com with your name, your location of residence (city, town or part of county), and 2 guesses: Roanoke’s highest temperature, and the date on which it will occur between June 1 and August 31.  As a matter of reference, every year on record since the late 1940s had had a highest temperature between 91 and 105. I will put out some more reminders on this.

UPDATE 2 AM, 5/20: Tropical Storm Alberto was named earlier this afternoon. For more, visit the National Hurricane Center website linked here. END UPDATE

Keep an eye on this little whirl off the coast of the Carolinas. The National Hurricane Center is. The low pressure system has a chance to take on tropical characteristics — i.e. a warm core arising from evaporation of warm ocean waters — if it hasn’t already. If the National Hurricane Center judges that it has developed sufficient tropical characteristics, it could become the first named storm of the Atlantic season (or pre-season, since the hurricane season technically begins June 1). As a tropical storm or subtropical storm (mixed tropical and non-tropical characteristics) with winds topping 40 mph, it would become Alberto. Keep this in mind if you are traveling toward the coast of the Carolinas. A full-blown hurricane is unlikely, but some windy, rainy weather is possible along the coast. Whether it’s Alberto or not, it may drift inland late in the weekend, and possibly farther west early next week, bringing a chance of showers and storms to Southwest Virginia.

I will be out today on the most active day of the current Virginia Tech storm chase, and a long return trip the next couple of days, so monitor the National Hurricane Center (click on Atlantic) and the National Weather Service-Blacksburg for further updates.

Southwest Virginia’s weekend looks beautifully sunny, but a westward-moving low off the Atlantic may spread some showers by early the coming week — about the time we arrive home from the first trip.

We ended up in WaKeeney, Kansas, for the evening, a familiar setting for Virginia Tech storm chasers over the years, with numerous tornado intercepts very near here in 2007 and especially 2008. We expect a few storms to develop near the Kansas-Colorado border today, perhaps in similar fashion as Thursday. Saturday appears to be the one and only big shot at supercells for this first trip, over central Kansas, most likely. After that, we’ll start working home, and prepare for a second trip that may start a few days earlier than planned to try and catch a potentially more conducive severe weather pattern developing late next week.

A few strong to severe pulse storms also affected Southwest Virginia on Thursday. Some of the students were getting the warnings on their smartphones as we drove toward the northwest Kansas storms. A few more storms may occur today, perhaps a bit farther to the southwest, but the overall pattern is leaning for generally nice weather the next few days in Southwest Virginia.

We’re in York, Nebraska, after a 2-day drive from Blacksburg. Some storms are possible on Thursday, in Nebraska or one of its bordering states, but any activity will likely be scattered and probably not severe or only marginally so.

Looks like some nice weather has settled into Southwest Virginia for a few days after Monday’s floods.

For most of the next 4 weeks, my attention will  largely be turned elsewhere other than Southwest Virginia weather. I’ll be keeping an eye on the weather back home (which today does include a good chance of more heavy rain showers and some thunderstorms developing – after several reports of flooding with excessive rains in Franklin County on Monday night), and may post about it from time to time, especially if there is something especially noteworthy, but most of my days will be spent driving a van full of Virginia Tech student storm chasers. So I may not be timely or detailed on local weather. I’m sure the community of commenters can and will fill in some of that gap — and of course there are links to the National Weather Service forecast and to the Radar / Future Cast on this blog site.

This is the eighth consecutive year I will be on board what has become known as the “Hokie Storm Chase.” I started in 2005 as a journalist and photographer “embedded” in the chase trip  for an award-winning series we called “Chasing the Wind.”  I was invited back  as a volunteer co-leader from 2006-11. This year, I am serving in an adjunct instructor capacity on back-to-back trips, the first starting Tuesday morning and continuing until Thursday, May 24, or so. The second will begin a few days later, depending on the pattern, and continue until no later than June 10.

This is a for-credit college field course for VT meteorology and geography students, and we will be gathering data via mobile mesonets, or weather instruments attached to the top of 3 vehicles (2 for the second trip). Many aspects of the journey can be a “fun” road trip, as we roll through Plains towns and countryside whose people are almost unfailingly extremely welcoming to us, but it is a serious endeavor focused on severe weather. Though certainly every student wants to see one, and we will put ourselves in the best position possible to safely view one, a tornado is not necessary for the trip to be worthwhile or successful. Some of our best storm intercepts over the years have not included tornadoes. We are looking for supercells, thunderstorms with strong rotating updrafts. Sometimes they produce tornadoes; sometimes not. The forecasting and observational experience the students get in this real-life laboratory as big as the heart of America is the most valuable aspect of the trip.

Each year I struggle with how to cover this on the blog. Since I’ve been doing it so long now, it seems a bit old and overexposed, so I did much less with it last year. But each year, I find folks interested in what we’re doing and where we’re going. I will try to post a short item, perhaps a photo, on most days I am out, but the timing will be rather erratic and I may have to skip a day or two now and then just out of simple exhaustion.

My Twitter account — @kevinmyattwx — will have a bit more frequent updates — you can follow that in the right margin of this blog even if you are not on Twitter yourself.  The official Hokie Storm Chase online sites include hokiestormchase.wordpress.org (blog and website), @hokiestorm on Twitter, and the Hokie Storm Chasers page on Facebook. Two Twitter handles that will have much more frequent updates than mine — because they won’t be driving — are from returning chasers Dan Goff (@WxDan) and Kathryn Prociv (@KathrynProciv).

UPDATE 9:30 PM: The yellow/orange/red spot on this National Weather Service map southeast of Roanoke represents radar-estimated rainfall totals of 3-plus inches — the red in the middle 5-plus inches. Much of that has occurred in cloudburst downpours since 4 p.m. from the Rocky Mount area east and northeast through Wirtz, Burnt Chimney, toward the west end of Smith Mountain Lake. Rain is resurging in the area again this evening as another upper-level impulse is triggering heavier showers and storms, and upslope southeasterly flow ahead of a low-pressure system continues to bank moisture against the higher terrain of the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge and the western Piedmont. The Future Cast image I posted last night below appears to have been on the right scent for location of the heaviest rainfall. You can follow the latest location of rainfall on the Radar / Future Cast in the right margin of this blog. END UPDATE

As you can see on the radar display in the right margin, rain is spreading across Southwest Virginia this evening, likely to overtake all of the Roanoke and New River valleys in the next 3 hours. Over the next 36 to 48 hours, there will be several periods of rain, as a slow-moving upper-level low to our west continues to pull it out of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic ocean, hurl it against our higher terrain, and squeeze out  heavier periods of it (some possibly accompanied by thunder) as upper-level disturbances traverse the region. I ran the “rain accumulation” feature in the Future Cast at right about 5:30 p.m., and it showed amounts of 1.5 inches widespread over the region through 3 p.m Tuesday with a zone of 2-plus inches generally along the eastern side of the Blue Ridge just east of Roanoke. The National Weather Service in Blacksburg and the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center have similar ideas on rainfall in the region. A soaking period is obviously ahead for Southwest Virginia.

UPDATE 1 AM, 5/13: Saturday night’s rainfall projection fls through Tuesday evening from the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center show rainfall may top 3 inches in some locations from the slow-moving upper-level low that will begin spreading showers into Southwest Virginia during the day Sunday, with heavy rain possible overnight Sunday into Monday. Don’t be surprised to see the National Weather Service in Blacksburg issue flood watches during the day Sunday for some or all of our region. You can follow the advance of rainfall and its potential for the region on the Radar /Future Cast link at right. (Just ran the Future Cast for rain accumulation, and it concurs with HPC, with about 3 inches of rain for Roanoke by 1 a.m. Tuesday). END UPDATE

It would have been hard to create a prettier day for Virginia Tech’s commencement Friday than the one that occurred (well, OK, I know some folks would have liked it warmer, especially after a morning low of 36 in Blacksburg and kind of a nip in the breeze even as it pushed into the 60s). Saturday will be similar, though a bit warmer, over most of Southwest Virginia (far southwest areas west of I-77 may get a few showers). But Mother’s Day — and especially the day after — are likely to be a different story. A slow-moving upper-low bringing rain and storms to Texas is going to dawdle east and northeast over the next few days. That will supply a lot of Gulf of Mexico moisture, squeezed out by upper-level impulses and our region’s higher terrain. The result will a period of significant to downright heavy rain, possibly exceeding 2 inches in many places by Tuesday. Mother’s Day is a bit of a question mark — the best chance of showers will be west of Interstate 81, as moisture slowly builds ahead of the storm system. By sometime in the afternoon or evening, rain will become widespread, and periods of rain are expected to continue into Monday and at least some of Tuesday.

Having a slow-moving Southeast U.S. upper-level low deliver a period of significant rain has become a tradition connected to the departure of the Virginia Tech storm chase team for the Plains states. We’ve seen this happen with amazing regularity the day we leave or a few days thereafter, and the circulation patterns leading to rain here often dry out the central U.S. for a few days. We’re planning to leave Tuesday, likely headed for the Northern Plains as moisture and jet energy slowly recharge in that region by next weekend.

With a cold front clearing the area on Wednesday, there may be some more showers – but probably not that many.  (Obviously this turned out to be wrong). In fact, the next several days look mostly dry, especially Thursday to Saturday, when dry air and clear skies overnight may put a few spots down into the 30s, especially west of I-81, with nippy 40s elsewhere. Another front will push through and sort of stall and meander by late in the weekend and early next week, and that may bring some more showers. With a pattern developing that features a southerly dip in the jet stream across the eastern U.S. , temperatures will be near or slightly below seasonal norms the next several days, which are mid 70s/low 50s high/low for Roanoke and near 70/mid 40s for Blacksburg.