Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.

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The wrestling match has begun. Wednesday's winds were the opening bell.

The atmosphere over the Atlantic has moved into a wintry mode, with blocking high pressure near Greenland forcing the jet stream to buckle southward behind it, bringing colder air southward.

But the atmosphere over the Pacific is still trying to do the mild-winter thing it's done for most of the past four years, with strong low pressure in the northern Pacific sweeping in a strong blast of mild air west to east across the country.

So now, they battle for supremacy.

Because of the changes over the Atlantic, we can expect generally cold weather over most of the next couple of weeks. That does not mean it will stay below freezing every day or that any precipitation that falls will be snow or ice. It does mean not to expect to wear shorts and short sleeves much, like we've become accustomed to in early January lately.

The struggle is likely to produce periodic rounds of precipitation as mild, moist winds from the southwest overrun colder air near the surface.

What form that precipitation will take will depend largely on which side is winning the wrestling match at the time.

Over the weekend, it appears as if enough milder air will creep in so that precipitation will more likely be rain rather than anything frozen, except perhaps for some pockets of freezing rain in colder valleys.

Come Monday night and Tuesday, it's not as certain. The cold air may hold in enough for a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain with a new storm system moving northeast from the Gulf of Mexico.

None of these look like major winter storms or big soaking rains, but just enough precipitation to make things slippery if we do happen to hang below 32.

Down the road, it does look as if the Atlantic's cold pattern will gain an upper hand for at least a period of time, as high pressure near the West Coast rearranges the Pacific pattern enough to enable it to enhance the movement of cold air into the eastern United States.

But for the course of the entire winter, the Pacific pattern that's been so hard to overcome for years may prove hard to beat. The block over Greenland will probably fold about midmonth, and milder weather is likely to return by the latter half of January.

It would then be a matter of whether the colder pattern could regroup for February, or if we would just slip silently into spring.