Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.

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• We got graupel, but not on official record
• Moisture could get caught up in cold blast
• Forecast for Weather Journal: Partly print, with frequent Internet
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• 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
• Coldest morning of winter so far likely across much of Southwest Virginia; Tuesday precipitation looking doubtful
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The faucet has been shut off.

After a seven-week period that produced more than 13 inches of rain in Blacksburg and almost 12 inches in Roanoke -- more than a quarter of each site's annual average rainfall -- the spigot of Gulf of Mexico moisture has been suddenly closed.

A change in the large-scale atmospheric pattern over North America has been bringing dry north winds into Virginia, pulled down the clockwise rotation of a strong high-pressure system heating up the south-central United States.

Over the next few days, Gulf moisture will begin to return, but only in a trickle. There may be just enough that a new cold front, daytime heating and some weak upper-level disturbances might be able to trigger a few scattered showers and thunderstorms by Thursday and Friday.

But no new torrent of moisture is expected in the near future. Dry northwest winds are expected to prevail for several days, circulating around the stubborn summerlike heat dome in the nation's midsection.

This statement would have seemed odd during the past few years of drought, but a welcome drying period is under way in soggy Southwest Virginia.

Weather Journal appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.