Another week of mild weather coming

A few days ago I broke down and bought "The Last Waltz" on blu-ray. This is a concert/documentary by Martin Scorsese on The Band's last performance in late 1976 at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. I can't claim to be a die-hard fan of "The Band", admittedly it seemed far removed from my generation but in the end I was completely blown away. It really is an organic music experience like no other I think. The incredible collection of musicians, the assortment of musical styles and influences ranging from jazz to country/bluegrass to blues to straight up rock and the sincerity of the interviews and performances are really hard to match. Sadly it all especially rings true in an environment watered down with the likes of Katie Perry or the other mass-produced pop music filling the airwaves. Especially for those generation Y2k's looking for something "real", go out and get your hands on "The Last Waltz", its a real piece of musical Americana. The irony there is that "The Band" is Canadian and the concert includes American musicians paying tribute to their contributions to music.

I can't speak so positively about the weather at MRG over the next week. Mild air will work its way back into the region later Sunday and into Monday. With that will come the rain which will in association with a slow moving front. The rain will be off and on between Monday and Tuesday night totaling between .50 and 1 inch total. Colder weather then arrives Wednesday night with flurries and snow showers but even this cold will fail to bring temperatures back to normal and might also give way to another mild push and rain for next weekend although this remains a question mark right now.

About the only thing we do know for sure beyond a week is that we will see a more serious punch of cold weather late next weekend after another rain or mixed precipitation event next weekend. Several runs of the European Ensemble have suggested that the very positive AO will continue to rule the day allowing the cold weather next weekend/early next week to lift and opening the door for more mild temperatures and potentially more rain. The GFS and its ensembles suggest otherwise; in fact, the GFS is so dramatically different beyond the 12th of December allowing arctic cold to completely overwhelm the pattern. This evolution is supported by a developing La Nina style ridge in the Gulf of Alaska and allowing the downstream trough to become expansive enough to cover most of Canada. It defies my sense of reality but it is nonetheless encouraging. It would be realistic enough to expect cold weather to expand its influence across Canada and at least become somewhat accessible to northern New England. I would not expect cold weather to be as persistent as what the GFS suggests beyond the 12th of the month.