A primer on thunderstorm formation accompanied by storm photos from Southwest and Southside Virginia during the past few weeks.

Kevin Myatt
Kevin Myatt has written about Southwest and Southside Virginia weather for the past two decades, previously for The Roanoke Times. He has led Virginia Tech students on storm chase trips, edited a book on Mid-Atlantic hurricanes and written articles for the Washington Post's "Capital Weather Gang." Twitter/X/Threads: @KevinMyattWx. Facebook: Kevin Myatt's Weather Wonders. Email: weather@cardinalnews.org.
Heat wave set to punch into Virginia’s mild summer
Southwest and Southside Virginia have missed out on heat waves broiling other areas, but heat is bulging eastward in days ahead, and a few spots may hit 100 by Saturday.
Super-soaking rain, supercells and stubborn summer smoke
Here’s how some places got inundated and we all inhaled more unwanted smoke over the past several days in Southwest and Southside Virginia.
Heat index to climb as sticky July heat returns
Less humid weather early this week in Virginia caused the heat index – a measure of how higher temperatures affect the body with varying humidity levels – to be a few degrees cooler than the actual temperature.
Heat, smoke and snow: Five weather predictions for second half of 2023
Winter and summer have largely been missing in the first half of 2023 across Southwest and Southside Virginia. Here’s what the second half of the year may hold.
Roanoke Valley sees worst air quality in 15 years
The dense haze from Canadian wildfire smoke is expected to gradually lessen over the next couple of days in Southwest and Southside Virginia.
Derecho still echoes and haunts more than a decade later
Thursday marks the 11th anniversary of one of Virginia’s windiest squall lines on its hottest day in a generation.
Summer on hold as a rainy low gets stuck
Another in a series of stuck low-pressure systems is circulating rounds of rainfall into Virginia all week and keeping summerlike heat at bay.
El Niño has officially started – here’s what it might mean for Virginia weather
Record-warm global average temperatures are almost a foregone conclusion, but that might not translate to the thermometer at your Southwest or Southside Virginia home.
Canada exports smoke and cool mornings to Virginia
Many locations in Southwest and Southside Virginia will be in the 40s on Thursday and Friday mornings as wildfire smoke continues to waft through our air.