Folk singer Arlo Guthrie has combined two worthwhile causes into a fund raising and gear gathering trip this week on AMTRAK’s City of New Orleans passenger train.   Deeply affected by the events he saw unraveling on television after Hurricane Katrina dorwned the city of New Orleans, Guthrie decided to do something.  On Tuesday night, I was extremely fortunate to be on the train that Mr. Guthrie and his entourage was taking from Chicago to Kankakee, Illinois.  It was a great pleasure to shake his hand on the platform as he detrained.

Guthrie and several other musicians are making several stops along the train’s route to play benefit concerts.  Tomorrow night they will be in Memphis.  They will finish Saturday night in New Orleans with Willie Nelson.  They are also collecting musical instruments to replace those destroyed in the flood.  You can help by sending financial contributions to www.guthriefoundation.com. 

Nighttime on The City of New Orleans,
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee.
Half way home, we'll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness
Rolling down to the sea.
And all the towns and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
And the steel rails still ain't heard the news.
The conductor sings his song again,
The passengers will please refrain
This train's got the disappearing railroad blues.

Guthrie’s 1972 song The City of New Orleans brought attention to the decline of the passenger train in America, a sad situation that continues today. 

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Those clouds yesterday really interferred with the warming so most areas did not get out of the mid and upper 40s. But satellite images are pretty devoid of clouds today so I expect to see most spots reach afternoon highs around 50.

The upper flow pattern is maintaining a long wave trough over the eastern half of the country with a number of implulses moving through the trough that are helping to maintain and reinforce the cold air especially with that large snow field to our north and northwest.

The pattern remains dry through Monday and Tuesday as afternoon temperatures inch up a notch or two but I don't believe we'll see values more than normal for this time of year - mid 50s. Moisture returns late in the day Tuesday with an excellcent chance for rain on Wednesday. Rain chances may increase late Tuesday, but it appears at this moment that our best liklihood for rain will be Wednesday. The system exits the area on Thursday with rain ending from the west beginning early Thursday. The end of the week remains dry and cool with our next possibility for rain into late Saturday or Sunday.

Yesterday I pointed out the big difference in the GFS and the European, but today the two models are in much better agreement. They aren't perfectly matched but the overall patterns look a lot closer increasing the confidence in the model solutions out around five days. European still a bit sharper with the long way trough.

If you looked at any of the model runs yesterday, the 12Z GFS did quite a flip coming up with a projection that looked a lot like a classic white Christmas here. It's flipped back again today with the Christmas outlook for some clouds - perhaps light rain late in the day - and temperatures cool but no threat of winter weather - IF the GFS solution 348-hours out is right!!

I had a great time yesterday evening emceeing the Christmas parade in Adamsville. I would like to that Mayor Terry Loggins and Joy Perry (both of them) for their spectacular hospitality. And I enjoyed working with Dr. Keith Adams from Gateway Baptist Church who was an able assistant from the announcing stand.

Have a great week and stay safe.

-Brian-