LOL, just watched an episode of The Dating Game in which the prize was a trip to glamorous... Roanoke, VA. That seems more like a punishment. <Preparing to be ratio'd by Roanoke.>
(1/2) ANNOUNCEMENT: I am leaving The Roanoke Times. This is my last Weather Journal column. Later this month, I will begin work in communications for
@VaMdVetMed
, the vet school at Virginia Tech โฆ But I will NOT be leaving weather. (cont'd, next tweet)
Discussion or even criticism of why weather events have gone differently than forecasts, mine or others, is fine. Vulgarity, rudeness, disrespect earns immediate blockage.
There may yet be some serious damage reports in Montgomery County but I'm breathing a sigh of relief for Blacksburg, Radford, Christiansburg, etc. This could have been really bad. Perhaps the main circulation stayed just above the surface. Whatever, I'll take it.
Probably the worst game day thunderstorm for Virginia Tech since the famous Lee Corso rental car lightning strike game with Georgia Tech in 2000. So much lightning, very heavy, rain, and even hail over Blacksburg.
(2/2) I will continue to post about weather as I always have here on my
@KevinMyattWx
Twitter handle and a new venue for longer-form regional weather analysis may develop in the coming weeks. ... Thank you for your support.
(1st of 5) I returned to the Roanoke Valley last night after a weeklong trip to Boston & back -- getting out before the blizzard. Still, it snowed on us 5 of 7 days of our trip. We received spectacularly good medical news for a son with resolving/improving chronic conditions. ...
Gauge close to Lane Stadium shows 4.3 inches of rain today. Blacksburg record daily rainfall is 4.48 inches on 8/14/1940 with 4.22 inches on 9/22/2021 in 2nd place. Will be interesting to see what the official NWS gauge shows on 5 p.m. daily climate report.
A long way out, so a lot can happen, but itโs been a long time since western Va has been circled by
@NWSCPC
with a slight risk of heavy snow in long range.
Hit 6,000 followers tonight on Twitter. I appreciate all those who have trusted me the past decade on Twitter with weather info, and almost another decade farther back than that in the
@roanoketimes
and on its website.
SIX-TWEET THREAD: (1/6) My 23-year Roanoke Times tenure has ended and I begin at VA-MD Vet Med this week. As stated previously, I will be continuing my weather posting on social media, and I hope very soon to have more to say about wider media weather coverage.
(6/6) Again, I appreciate all the support I've gotten over the years and especially during this recent transition period. You have enabled me to live out a childhood dream of telling people about weather for 19 years, and I believe the best is yet to come.
(1/2) Some things are more important than weather or work. In midst of a pattern that may yield 2 chances of ice/snow next week, I will be taking time away to attend to a family medical matter. I will tweet some but won't be consistently following Roanoke-NRV area weather daily.
I drove right past the tangle of cars at McAfee Knob trailhead and found a section of the Appalachian Trail with golden forests and solitude on this lovely Sunday afternoon.
Iโm sure somebody has a more wide-open view than me, but weโre getting one of those spectacular tropical cyclone outflow cirrus canopy sunsets in the Roanoke Valley.
Hokies fans have been asking me about previous game day rains compared to yesterday's 4.41
8/27/2000 1.96 (Ga. Tech, Lee Corso car fried)
9/18/2003: 1.05 (Texas A&M, Hurricane Isabel)
10/25/2007: 2.17 (Boston College, Matt Ryan late TD)
9/26/2009: 1.69 (Miami, 31-7 VT win)
Deep blue skies and lower humidity are much appreciated after recent rounds of 1) Canadian wildfire smoke blowing in and 2) sticky heat. Photo from Hahn Garden on Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg.
There are fake pics circulating tonight on the Blacksburg tornado. I'm not honoring them with a retweet. A massive black funnel in a bunch of houses in flat terrain isn't Blacksburg.
It's seems wild to be talking about this when it hit 75 in Roanoke today, but a lot of data suggesting perhaps a longer, heavier period of snowfall in Roanoke/NRV & much of Virginia early Monday. Going to let it simmer overnight and see where we are Sunday AM. ... Welcome to 2022
I am on furlough from
@roanoketimes
through Sunday (May 10). I will not be doing online posts or my weekly column. This Twitter handle is mine, not theirs, so I can post here, though by choice I am limiting social media. 1 weather note: Beware freeze/frost potential by weekend.
My best why you should vote story: In the late 90s in rural Arkansas. there was a bond referendum I cared little about. But I thought it was my duty to vote. In front of the voting station, there was a starving, stray puppy that became my loyal hiking dog for the next 16 years.
This is where I escaped Wednesday afternoonโs heat. Up on Sharp Top Mountain, just shy of 4,000 feet, it was in the low-mid 70s with a cooling breeze and low humidity.
#swvawx
Strange but true sighting along trail at Poor Mountain Natural Area Preserve this morning. This yellow glow stick was a sap-infused icicle lit up by sunlight. Water had poured through a hollow in a recently felled & sawed tree trunk and frozen solid into an opaque column.
I can see Greensboroโs skyline poking up on the horizon 62 miles away from atop windy, cold Buffalo Mountain in Floyd County. My phone camera canโt pull that out but Pilot Mountain about 35 miles away is obvious. Near perfect visibility. Ice in the rocky puddles up here.
#swvawx
There are two situations in which the sky seems bluest & visibility clearest here in western Va mountains: (1) immediately behind strong cold front; (2) immediately behind tropical system. Today is both.
#swvawx
This kind of picture-perfect, low-humidity, warm-but-not-hot day in western Virginia. Photos from the Appalachian Trail in Craig County, above Niday shelter, looking back east toward Brush Mountain.
Happy New Year to all my Twitter followers. Thank you for your support through a year of transitions. I plan no changes to what I post here or on other social media & I'm looking forward to a year of writing weather columns for
@CardinalNewsVA
focusing on Southwest/Southside Va.
Save this image for a sticky day in July. Partially frozen waterfall at Poor Mountain Natural Area Preserve in SW Roanoke County. Not as hard frozen as in Jan 2018, probably due to both much less duration of extreme cold & harder water flow from heavy rain just before deep freeze
(5/5) And we found time for New England fun plus lobster rolls & clam chowder. Glad to be back. Thanks to my followers for your support during my absence. After a warmup this week, I don't think Roanoke/NRV/SW Va area is done with winter, whatever the groundhog says Wednesday.
The road less traveled โ actually the road not traveled by vehicles for a year and a half โ is the Blue Ridge Parkway south of Roanoke, still closed for reconstruction after a May 2020 mudslide. But, nonetheless, lovely peak fall colors for those of us who can reach it by foot.
Virginia Tech's Hokie Storm Chasers (
@hokiestorm
) having an epic storm chase in eastern Wyoming/western Nebraska this Friday evening with a cyclic supercell repeatedly spinning up tornadoes. (Photos courtesy of meteorology instructor Dave Carroll).
I don't chase forecast models bouncing around snow totals several days out. But I do take notice when there is a steady climb to that output on multiple forecast model runs in the final 24 hours before an event. That is happening today for Roanoke/NRV/SW Va.
#swvawx
Happy Thanksgiving! Very thankful for each of you who have supported me here on Twitter, at The Roanoke Times in the past, & currently at
@CardinalNewsVA
and
@VaMdVetMed
. A dry day on tap that is neither really warm nor really cold for SW/Sside Va. Enjoy your day & those with you
A year ago today, my last Weather Journal column published in The Roanoke Times. While I knew I would be continuing my weather column in
@CardinalNewsVA
, I couldn't say that yet (tried to hint!). Thanks for all who have joined/rejoined me in the new venue.
Took advantage of Tuesday's nice weather for a long-desired visit to The Channels nature preserve near the Washington-Russell county line west of Saltville. An unusual setting for the East, the eroded sandstone channels reminded me of Western slot canyons.
4.41 inches at Blacksburg on Saturday, while Roanoke & Lynchburg combined for 0.2 inch (0.19 at Roanoke, 0.01 at Lynchburg). Lynchburg got its 4+ inches, and 8+ in 4 days, back in mid-July. Meanwhile, areas north of I-64 & west of Blue Ridge have dried-up streams.
1 thing you'll never see me do here is predict, advise, or criticize school decisions on whether to let out. Tomorrow tricky on timing of snow & murkiness in amounts. The highway being "just wet" doesn't mean the hilly, rural road where the bus has to go is the same. Tough calls.
Lots of people aren't getting power as quickly as they'd like, but please remember these utility workers are away from families 2 nights before Christmas working in single-digit/below-zero cold and brutal wind chills to restore power.
Utility crews making significant progress across Va, as total number without power is cut in half from earlier, now 74K customers. 5.5K in Roanoke Count & 4.7K in Franklin County are most, but down from earlier.
It was a nice day to spend some time at Grayson Highlands State Park, which always looks and feels more West than typical Virginia mountains. Clear, cool, calm. Very little snow left but lots of mud from thawing ground.
Back in the saddle ... for a few minutes. Helped professor Dave Carroll test the radios in the vans today ahead of
@hokiestorm
trip starting Sunday. I haven't been out since 2018 ... hoping to go in 2024! Best of luck and safe travels to the Virginia Tech storm chasers.
Going through the archive... always loved this storm from June 29, 2012 of a beautiful shelf cloud over the
#Chicago
skyline. Ran 2.1 miles at full speed after my weather radio woke me up to get this shot. Got drenched on the way home.
#ILwx
Fabulous day for a hike to Angels Rest & Pearis Bluffs on the Appalachian Trail near Pearisburg in Giles County. My 1st hoodie hike of the season..
#swvawx
Good morning from Cherokee Village, Arkansas, near centerline for totality of todayโs solar eclipse. We had backup plans but I knew driving back from totality in KY in 2017 that my native land is where I wanted to be for 2024. Sunny day expected here with some thin cirrus clouds.
Beautiful morning sky of pink-lit clouds over the Blue Ridge. Some snowflakes may spit out of those clouds this morning especially higher elevations west of the Blue Ridge.
Peter notes that this isn't naked-eye visible, the images from Virginia thus far are 15-second exposures in remote areas away from city lights. But still quite amazing that the aurora extends so far away from horizon at our latitude.
I appreciate the support many of you expressed today. I actually get far fewer tasteless comments than just about all my TV weather counterparts do -- especially women in the field. I do believe civility & decency are not optional & direct my social media interactions accordingly
Discussion or even criticism of why weather events have gone differently than forecasts, mine or others, is fine. Vulgarity, rudeness, disrespect earns immediate blockage.
I still rate this the unhappiest winter I've ever seen in SW Va. Snow lovers frustrated by storms missing S & E in Dec/early Jan; bitter cold but dry in Jan & warm Feb surge. Now almost everybody calling for spring to just get on with itself. Winter saying no.
#swvawx
Heavy snow looking very likely Sunday. I'm thinking 8+ inches Roanoke/NRV & south, with 4+ reaching I-64 in western Va. Some locations top a foot, especially south of Roanoke. Travel will become hazardous rapidly on Sunday morning.
#swvawx
Signing off for about 24 hrs for Christmas holiday. Very cold next 2 AMs in SW/Sside Va, 5-10 degrees milder than Sat AM, then gradually milder in week ahead, maybe 60 by NY Day. Keeping half an eye on Mon PM/Tues AM for clipper but probably won't do much. Merry Christmas!
April 16, 2007, was a significant weather day in our region, with winds gusting over 60 mph & abnormally late snow showers. I lost track of it all about mid-morning when the full horror of what had happened at Virginia Tech began to be known.
#neVerforgeT
This is a devastating day. This morning, Lee Enterprises announced it's laying off 9 people in our newsroom. That is a grievous cut to our manpower and comes on top of several prior rounds of slashes forced in just the past year. Our full statement:
I am on furlough from
@roanoketimes
thru Sunday, June 28, as my colleagues & I each fulfill 2 corporate-mandated weeks without pay this quarter. I will not be doing my usual columns & online posts. This Twitter handle is mine, not theirs, so I may post here, but less frequently.
Congrats to
@RobinReedWDBJ
on his coming retirement from Channel 7. He has always offered encouragement to me from my earliest days writing about weather in the Roanoke Valley two decades ago (when he'd already been a fixture here for as long.) Now we both work for Virginia Tech.
We're celebrating Robin Reed. Robin is retiring in December from your Hometown Station. Watch to see how he inspired meteorologists all over the country.
You may have noticed my geographic descriptor in tweets changing this week from Roanoke/NRV to Southwest/Southside Va (or often, SW/S'side Va). I will be writing about weather for larger region with
@CardinalNewsVA
, from Cumberland Gap to Cumberland County.