Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.

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The heat wave may be over, but it's still pretty hot.

So, who would like a cool wave?

That will be quite possible toward the latter half of next week as a major weather change is likely to bring winds out of Canada for several days.

The weather pattern in the summer months -- meteorologists count all of June, July and August as summer -- is all about where the hot domes of high pressure set up and how the jet stream rides around those hot air masses.

For the past 10 days or so, the heat dome has set up over the Southeast, expanding north and west at times to including most of the East. The jet stream has dipped southward into the central United States, causing very turbulent weather there, then risen northward up and over the heat dome, carrying most of that storminess toward New England.

A weak cold front at midweek was able to nudge aside the hottest air and pull us out of a torrid stretch in which temperatures reached the 90s most places in Southwest Virginia. But we are still in the same generally hot weather pattern.

We might even see 90 degrees today and Saturday in Roanoke, before another weak cold front attacks the heat dome and cools the region by Sunday. Still, highs will likely be in the 80s through much of the early part of the week. Normal highs are in the low 80s, so many days could be a few degrees warmer than normal.

The atmosphere will begin changing significantly over the U.S. by the middle part of next week.

The core of the hottest air will be centered in the Southwest rather than the Southeast. The heat will build into the central U.S., especially the southern Plains.

As the hot air repositions, the jet stream will also shift, moving around the large high like water currents around a boulder.

The air flow will pour southeastward across the Great Lakes into the East, bringing cool Canadian air into regions that have sizzled the past several days.

It's not too much different than the weather pattern that controlled much of May. Roanoke's temperature averaged almost exactly normal for May, but there were several nights with lows in the 40s.

It won't be quite that cool, except maybe in some of the more rural mountain areas, but we could have some days with highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s by late next week.

That will feel downright chilly after the heat we've endured so far in June.