Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.

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• Winter trying again to show up with snow
• We got graupel, but not on official record
• Moisture could get caught up in cold blast
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• Many looking past mild, quiet week toward possibly wild weekend
• Sprinkles or flurries possible Tuesday, but maybe something bigger for the weekend?
• For now, it looks like a quiet, mostly mild week ahead for SW Virginia
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@KevinMyattWx

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How would you like a few more helpings of winter?

I've heard from many of you the past couple of days who would consider that like being served filet mignon. Others would be repulsed, like it was Brussels sprouts and turnip greens.

But some people like Brussels spouts and turnip greens, while others can't stand beef.

Today could serve up at least a small dish of wintry wonder following up on Thursday's hearty course of 4-6 inches of snow in the Roanoke and New River valleys.

A low pressure system will move northeastward from the Gulf Coast toward the northeast, somewhere in the general vicinity of Cape Hatteras, N.C. It may be able to throw back enough moisture for some snow in Southwest Virginia.

How much moisture that would be is in considerable doubt. It looks to be a fairly weak and fast-moving low, plus a little farther east than Thursday's storm tracked. The thickest moisture appears likely to travel across central and eastern North Carolina.

The atmosphere will be very cold, especially above the immediate surface level, so it's almost certain that anything falling will be snow.

If the low strengthens or moves any farther west than presently forecast, it could produce a more substantial snow than the scattered snow showers now forecast. If it's weaker or travels farther east, we might not even get flurries.

A bigger helping of true winter hits Sunday and Monday in the form of bitterly cold air from the Arctic Circle. It will be by far the coldest so far this season and possibly the coldest in several years.

Lows by Monday morning will probably be in the single digits and teens across the area, and a few below-zero readings in some of the colder valleys can't be ruled out. Any snow cover that remains from Thursday or is added Saturday will help the mercury drop even lower.

We got as cold as 10 degrees last February and haven't been any colder than 8 degrees since 2000 in Roanoke. There's a chance that by Thursday morning we could challenge those marks.

Temperatures will gradually warm next week, but several disturbances moving across the United States will each pose a threat of precipitation.

We could be walking the rain/snow/ice borderline on any of these systems, as temperatures look to be mostly near what is normal for this time of year highs in the 40s on sunny days, lows in the 20s.

The rest of January is looking to be pretty close to what winter typically looks like in Southwest Virginia.

It would take only a couple of more moderately sized dishes of snow to make this the biggest serving of winter we've had in five years.