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A shower moves from Fort Lewis Mountain over the Roanoke Valley about 5 p.m. Click here for a bigger look at this photo.

Roanoke only got .13 inch of rain before 5 p.m., but there was widespread coverage of light to moderate rainfall amounts today across most of Southwest Virginia. A smattering of showers is all that's left this evening, as shown by this National Weather Service radar screen grab shortly after 5 p.m. As expected earlier today, the stronger storms fired to our southeast, where there was more heating. This little pocket of showers -- with maybe a couple of lightning bolts or a brief wind gust here and there -- is all that's left for us of this system, which is a combined effort of a weak cold front, an upper-level impulse, and the very dispersed remnants of what was once Category 2 Hurricane Dolly, which hit south Texas 8 days ago.

Once the weak front passes us and washes out, the atmosphere will begin drying out and high temperatures will start climbing. By Sunday, expect widespread 90s, and don't rule out a few triple-digit readings early next week, especially in Southside Virginia. There are still some factors to weight as to whether this upcoming hot spell -- caused by high pressure expanding eastward from the central U.S, as depicted on this Climate Prediction Center Hazards Assessment map. -- will stretch longer than Tuesday to begin a substantial August heat wave, or whether a new dip in the jet stream near the Great Lakes might nudge the high enough either east or back to the west to short-circuit the heat after 3 or 4 days. Being early August, we should not be surprised by a few days of mid-90s temperatures in Roanoke, but though we hit 100 four times in August 2007, the century mark is still a pretty unusual occurrence in the Star City.