3/28/07 REPORTS: VA, NC, SC, WV

[Kevin Myatt]

Certainly this won't compare to anything you folks in the Plains will be scoring this afternoon and evening ... but the first local chase of the season in Virginia is cause for some celebration. I went after a severe-warned storm moving through Roanoke and Botetourt counties just north and west of the city of Roanoke. I core-punched it, since there was virtually no threat of tornadoes with almost non-existent shear, and found nothing but very heavy rain and a lot of CGs. Several locations in the area reported 3/4 to 1-inch hail, including about 10 miles west of my core punch. I shot one photo (big version of small inset photo) of the storm while driving west on Virginia 419 in Salem, Va. ... a little structure on a shelf cloud and a nice rain shaft.

Now you folks in the Plains keep the fires stoked until I can get out there in mid-May.

My weather blog on Roanoke.com

 

[Dan Robinson]

Today looked marginal at best, so I decided to stick close to home. Slow-movers in the mountains looked like a flood threat rather than anything else, so I focused on that. Started heading south around 2PM toward Beckley, but quickly decided against it. Wytheville-Roanoke corridor looked like the best area, but not good enough to make a 2-hour drive. Storms down there along the mountains had sharp radar echoes and lots of lightning, with very little gradient between heavy and light reflectivities (including Kevin's Roanoke cell). Back west to St. Albans to play the tower lightning card with a weak line moving in, but all lightning ceased on Threatnet. Called it a day after less than 45 minutes of driving. A bust, but a short and cheap one.