Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.

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April appears likely to go down as a cool month.

Several days of cool, damp weather this month have pushed the average temperature 1.4 degrees below normal, at 52.3 degrees, in Roanoke through Monday. Blacksburg was exactly on its normal for the first 13 days of the month at 47.5 degrees.

Both sites were hovering near 50 on Tuesday, well below normal highs in the 60s this time of year.

The rest of this week will bring a cooler, drier air mass that could result in a frost and/or freeze threat across Southwest Virginia by Thursday morning. Most of the region along and east of Interstate 81 is now considered to be in its growing season, so that threat may result in frost and freeze warnings or advisories.

The air will be dry enough that daytime sunshine will warm it rapidly, so the afternoons will be near 70 by Friday and Saturday, before more showery, cool weather moves in by early next week.

Long term, there are signals that strong high pressure is likely to build in the western United States. That would give that region a warm, dry period, but it would push the jet stream farther south across the East, allowing cooler air from Canada to dominate much of the latter half of the month.

Such a pattern may also interrupt, at least temporarily, the steady stream of storm systems that have brought needed rain to the area about every three days. So the damp part of this cool, damp month might become a little less so even as the cool part hangs on.