Tough day losing Bob Weir, one of the original and best known members and voices of the Grateful Dead. Dead music has become engrained into the spirit of Mad River Glen and can be heard at the mid-station, the basebox and quite often the parking lot. It's been a tough week out there in the world and I had certainly not expected to get hit with this, especially since Bobby had been active and in seemingly good health. Seemed like the 4 winds were destined to blow him and us right through these troubled times or at least help us along for several more years. Lots of great tributes will certainly circulate in the coming days and I'll certainly read as many as possible and in the meantime share my own personal perspective. I've always been fascinated with the relationship time has with music. Specifically how it manages to filter bad music away while allowing the enduring music to do its thing. I saw the Grateful Dead with Jerry in June of 1995 when I was a teenager. Had you asked me then what I thought of the band, I might have dismissively told you they were overrated. The show I saw was unspectacular. Jerry was hurting, often hiding his face or even sitting and the larger stadium made it a rather impersonal experience. Then a few years went by, the internet matured and I started doing deep dives into "archives.org" and the growing list of shows that were being uploaded there. It was just spectacular hearing them through some of those better known peak eras like 1968, 1972-1974 or 1977. Then I got a few more DVDs to get the more visual perspective and I became a fan. The music was there, had been recorded, performed and would gradually get the appreciation from so many including the initial skeptics such as myself. That doesn't happen in music unless you do something original and sincere and perform that material like you really mean it. I loved the troubadour tunes that Bobby was able to add to the Grateful Dead catalog with the help of John Perry Barlow and much like Phil Lesh, who we lost late in 2024, he was able to bring the energy all the way through to the end. What a wonderful life lived and I am certainly grateful to have shared in part of that musical journey.
Though we were able to turn the weekend colder and get some mixed precipitation that evolved into a bit of snow, I had hoped for an even better outcome, especially since some of the better moisture did find a way to us Saturday night. Early Sunday should feature the sliver of drier weather as the atmosphere turns colder behind the departing and consolidating storm over New Brunswick. This consolidation does bring with it a good window for some snow showers which should develop late Sunday and continue into part of Sunday night. Temperatures should hold in the 20's through much of the day Sunday and then drop into the teens along with some potent northwest winds. The snow shower set up is one of the better ones we've had in a while albeit short-lived and should be good for 3-6 inches for the ski day Monday. The incoming airmass is not especially arctic in nature which helps from an instability perspective.
Our ski day Monday, January 12th looks like a rather typical January day. A little new snow overnight, a little blustery, chilly with temperatures in the 20's and just some limited sun trying to break through the pesky cloudiness. The next chance for snowfall comes late Tuesday from a vigorous and interesting jet disturbance bringing with an accompanying clipper system our way. Snow should begin after most of the ski day is over and continue into the evening. I might predict more snow and get more excited except I hate that southwest flow over us and would expect snow accumulations to stay on the lighter 1-4 inch side by early Wednesday. This upper air feature means business however and will carve out a massive hole in the jet stream over TN/KY early Thursday. Models are struggling to figure out how a storm might get cooked up out of all this, but more and more simulations are doing just that in various ways. Additional snow this week, mainly on Thursday is likely as a result and I would stay tuned and let the details sort themselves out as to gets what, how much and where. This is not an especially cold week in Vermont with temperatures expected to approach the freezing mark Wednesday before ending the week cold and blustery behind the bombing storm.
Another jet amplification is certainly capable of producing some snow for MLK weekend before arctic air is reinserted into our forecast picture around the time of Monday January 19th to Wednesday the 21st. The cold appears a bit short-lived on more recent model runs yet retains a presence in Canada even as the cold modifies by the 23rd of 24th of January. I wouldn't guarantee it, but there's a high probability we are beginning a long sub-freezing stretch.
Lazy lightnin' sleepy fire in your eyes it's like desire in disguiseI keep on tryin' but I, I can't get throughLazy lightnin' I'd like to find the proper potionThat's gonna capture your emotionYou're right beside me but I, I can't get through
2 comments:
A sad ending to what has been a rough week. We could really use a blanket of white tonight to cover up everything.
Thanks for your homage to Bob Weir, Josh. Your journey with the Dead sounds much like my own. I owe much to them. It seems that most of the world has become a place the Dead wouldn't recognize, but at Mad River Glen they fit right in so well. There's such synchronicity between the two. I always hear the Dead when I'm on the mountain, even when they're not being played.
Ski your face right off of your head!
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