coming up from the south, causing the problems today. >> elizabeth joins us to tell us what we can expect. >> already we have thunderstorms out there, none of these are reaching the criteria, where there has been a warning placed out for that. we will will throwing a lot of stuff at you today. a warning means the winds are 60 miles per hour or greater or hail, the size of a quarter or larger. we have a wind advisory out for today, starting at 9:00 a.m., we may have gusts outside of thunderstorms up to 50 miles per hour, of course we have a good tornado threat for today as well. to the radar picture, looping that, with the loop, see we have thunderstorms already. none of these reaching severe criteria yet. that doesn't mean they are not loud and producing heavy rain and gusty winds. we will check out those storms especially over to the western part of the viewing area, we will zoom in, we have heavier rain south of garner and west

and south of pitsboro on 87, heavier rain and southwest, and west of chapel hill we are seeing heavier rain, thunder and lightning with these. nothing severe yet as we get through the day, that chance gets higher and higher. here is a look at the loop again, the storms coming up from the south. wind advisory in to effect at 9:00 a.m. gusts up to 50 miles per hour. that's separate from thunderstorms that may see, which could produce winds stronger than that, up to 75 miles per hour or more if we have tornados develop. that bullseye, the red, is where we are at a level four out of five. severe storm risk for today. the other areas of the viewing area could have the risk for tornados as well. mid 40s now, for most of the viewing area, zebulon, durham, raleigh, 48 rocky mount. watching the warm air from the south. as we warm up, our threat for the stronger storms will increase. temperatures by lunchtime,

climbing in to the 60s, that's when the threat of severe weather will increase. it may come in two bands and talking about the timing of the bands more coming up. the severe weather is a developing story this morning in the south. >> three people are dead and several missing after strong storms. >> tornados ripped through the gulf states, as don champion reports, some places and homes and neighborhoods are barely recognizable now. >> reporter: in to the overnight hours, storms showed little mercy on the gulf states. in pensacola, florida, a reported tornado tossed around cars and damaged most of the neighborhood. williamson admits she barely survived. >> we are okay, that's all that matters. >> reporter: in many areas, daylight will review the true extent of the damage. people used flashlights to sift through debris.

day tuesday, with at least 26 tornados reported in the south, one of them blew the roof off this gym in prairieville, louisiana. >> we had 35 people working employees and people working out, 8 kids in the daycare. a scary situation. >> reporter: not far away in the town of convent, another tornado destroyed this rv park, killing at least two people. >> we don't have a good way of knowing if we have one, two, three people unaccounted for. >> reporter: to the north and mississippi, witnesss say a tornado ripped a mobile home off its foundation, killing the elderly man inside. in new orleans, the storms spawned 3 water spouts on lake pontchartrain. don champ champion, cbs news. alabama and georgia forecasters issued flash flood watches for today. the storm system expected to

it will use the gps on your phone or your tablet to send notifications to you when severe weather is in the area. for all of the details, go to wral.com search alert center. health care providers are once again asking state lawmakers to limit how insurance companies restrict the use of expensive drugs to save money. >> those providers will testify in front of the house committee this afternoon. mikaya thurmond is in the newsroom with more on the debate over step therapy. >> step therapy sometimes called fail first is one way insurance companies control dug cost, requiring patients to start with cheaper drugs, even if the doctor prescribes something else and won't approve more expensive drugs until the cheaper ones have been proven not to workm lawmakers began considering the fail first protocol. the practice keeps prices under control. today, four north carolina health providers will testify

policy causes problems with patients with severe chronic illnesseses by delaying their needed treatment. the hearing will happen at the legislative building, it's set to start at 2:00 p.m. the u.s. senate race in north carolina is hitting the air waves. richard burr began airing his first television ad, airing in raleigh and greensboro. burr is seeking his third term in the senate, three opponents in the primary, obstetrician, bran non, homequist. join us tomorrow night for a debate. a half hour conversation. commercial free. the way to learn the way federal judge ace prove of election maps will take longer. a new order gives people

days to file objections. the order doesn't say when the court will issue the decision on the maps. raleigh's appearance commission holds a meeting about downtown sidewalk seating rules, the final meeting supposed to be last weeks, but members decided they needed one more including a ban on picnic tables. they will present the suggestions in march. the police protective association says it will not boycott an upcoming beyonce concert at carter finley stadium. it comes after a nationwide backlash, over the singer's super bowl performance in which her dancers depicted members of the black panther party. the members took an oath to protect and serve all citizens regardless of their political beliefs and speech. it is still up in the air as to whether officers decide if they want to work off duty to provide security. raleigh police spokesperson says to be clear, this is a

department decision. the highway patrol tells us it will provide traffic assistance like they do for any other major event. new information about a small plane crash that injured a pilot from wake county. >> what happened in if air that forced him to -- in the air

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diisd agfo line officers arrested a man wanted for murder. officers say powell faces murder and other charges related to the jeff of jimmy daniels jr. police in scott land say he was shot while sitting in the car in january,

police are still looking for a second suspect lamont loyd. pat mc corey plans to take legislative action to keep charlotte's controversial bathroom ordinance from passing across the state. they passed a ordinance in a 7- 4 vote, against the law for businesses and taxis to discriminate against members of the lgbt community and allow them to use the bathrooms of their choice. mc corkey says he believes allowing transgender people to use the bathroom is a violation of privacy and overreach and he is stepping in. >> as i warned and as i expected, we already have state legislators working on legislation for april to reverse what the city council did. >> the law goes in to effect april 1st. lawmakers will likely file a bill that month. we are learning about a man involved in a plane crash this florida.

was flying from raleigh to sarasota when he requested to make an emergency landing because of engine trouble. the pilot couldn't make to it the airport. he deployed an emergency parachute and landed in a yard in florida south of jacksonville. no one on the ground was hurt. thomas was taken to the hospital with minor injuries. we are getting our look inside the damage of a popular raleigh landmark, boiling bridge pub forced to close after a wall collapse. water pressure from a leaky sprinkler caused a wall to collapse bringing down a portion of the roof as well. the entire basement was flooded, now it is a mess of mud and equipment, that owner andrew league ser still hoping to salvage. he is working to get repairs underway and hopes to re-open within 6 months but admits that may not happen. >> i feel upbeat about what we

this is downtown raleigh. i get emotional about it. >> we got a lot of prospects here. >> a great location, the pub is a fixture this downtown raleigh with a full heated patio over looking the skyline, closure, even only temporary is a blow to the neighborhood and the city as well. domestic violence charges filed against a former hurricanes player dismissed. ward was arrested in october, at his home in cary and charged with misdemeanor assault on a female interfering with emergency communications. the police report revealed ward took his wife's phone when she tried to call 911 following a confrontation. the charges were dropped friday. orange county health department wants to explore adding e cigarettes to the smoking ban. the board directed county and town governments to draft

to include the types of cigarettes. they hope to have a draft for public feed back by april taking affect by the fall. maredith college is marking the 125th anniversary, a reception beginning at 10:00 this morning in jones auditorium on the campus in raleigh. including the unveiling of maredith's new historical marker. a special anniversary celebration takes place friday morning when the weather will dry out and be much more quiet. we got to get through today, though. >> we do. >> maybe my sister stephanie will come down. she is a maredith angel from years ago. >> i'm sure there be a lot of alums. looks like we have dangerous weather in the forecast for today. very spring-like situation, though technically it isn't spring yet. we can expect it to be like that today. we start with the radar picture. we have the showers and thunderstorms, streami u

the lightning in the western part of the viewing area. we do not yet have any warnings posted for any of these cells that are popping up. do note that we are expecting to see heavy rain and gusty winds with these. rain over around night dale, pitsboro and goldston, heading to the north, chapel hill, up towards parts of almans county, seeing lightning at the moment, north of hillsborough. those are the areas you can see as we zoom in, that doesn't look like we have a large area of heavy rain, starting to see thunder and lightning, to the west of raleigh and durham. in the eastern part of wake county, night dale and mill brook, patchy rain. everybody else seeing scattered showers, we will have more thunderstorms as we head through the morning and as the morning wears on, an increasing

in terms of winds and isolated tornados this morning. looks like this afternoon, after lunchtime, we may have a strong line of thunderstorms that develops, which will give us a good chance for severe weather. another look at the radar starting at 1:00, this morning, you can see those lines of thunderstorms coming up from the south. it's wet this morning. foggy in some places where the rain is not falling in apex. we have fog there. 46 degrees, drizzly as wellm not everybody has seen dangerous weather yet. most of the viewing area has the potential for later today. dew point is 45, 42 south hill. 43 roxboro. watching our temperatures to the south closelies we will warm up quickly, the warm air northward. along the warm front is where we will have a focusing mechanism. the danger at the moment, south in to georgia, the red boxes

yellow and pink boxes flashing are where we have warnings and tornado warnings, a good bit of that overnight, this will trend up in to the area later this afternoon. we may have scattered severe weather this morning, we may see that real intense better chance for that severe weather later this afternoon starting at 1:00 or so. here is 7:00 a.m., scattered showers and storms, watching for that line of thunderstorms developing, here it is after 1:00, beginning to make its way in to the sand hills, that line there that may have a better chance of producing some tornados, still this morning, we have the threat as well. a look at the history of what the storm has done, all of the red triangles are tornado reports, those are damage reports, not necessarily individual tornados, we had 30 damage reports from tornados in the last 24 hours south. the red area is where we are at a level four out of five.

level three in orange and so, this is high for our area. definitely, tornados are a real threat for us later today. high climb it is to 71, we have a wind advisory in effect. there maybe strong wind gusts outside of the thunderstorms, looking of course at quieter weather for thursday. blustery thursday, sunshine, cooler temperatures, a good looking weekend, monday looks nice, 68 degrees, maybe the warmest day of the week, monday we welcome nbc to our wral family. trafficwise, this morning, be on the lookout, additional accidents because of heavy rain with the thunderstorms, i-40, u.s. 64, looking fine now, wet, you may run in to fog. it's a little bit of everything. next in sports , the hurricanes occupy pnc arena,

playoff points. jeff gravley breaks down the top plays, next. time for today's pet picture, say good morning to sister anybodiler, the most dapper cat around.

pets on wral.com. a big wring on home ice on philadelphia. playing in the first time since february 7th. back the line up. fliers goalie, tries to clear, it is picked off and put in the net by joe nordstrom, making it 1-1s ward gave up a softy in the first. in the second, jordan stall, 24 points in the last 21 games,

head to the third, jay will have the shot, check out the handy stick work from eric stall. that's his first goal since january 12th. great night for the cains, they win, 3-1. >> you got to be tough mentally. you got to realize you can't. you got to get prepared and ready for the next save. today i was able to put it behind me and get ready for the next round. >> big saves, break aways and all kinds of stuff going on, allow us to stay this the game and get the footing a little bit. >> it not just hump days it's state carolina day. tonight k tip off at 8:00, right here on wral. ciaa basketball tournament is underway, the locals, fayetteville state a winner big, the ladies side not good for the locals.

be safe out there. dangerous weather is moving in to our area, we are talking about storms, powerful winds and possible tornados.

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prshow showers and thunderstorms developing across the area. little bit of lightning and thunder with that. no severe weather wet. through the morning and late morning in to the afternoon, we will have our best chance of seeing it, see showers that have come through the area overnight. temperatures are in the mid 40s to near 50. we warm up quickly, by lunchtime k we have a good threat for severe weather, looking at damaging winds and potential tornados, a high this afternoon of 71. we will talk about that severe threat in a few minutes. protesters gathered outside apple stores across the

support of the company. demonstrators wanted to sew they stand by the tech company's decision not to comply with the court oh order to hack in to the iphone of the san bernardino shooter. apple's attorneys say the order infringes on the first amendment rights. southwest airlines maybe headed to cuba, the company's ceo says the carrier could begin flights after the u.s. and cuba agreed to resume commercial air traffic last week. only charters are flown there, u.s. carriers face a march 2nd deadline to submit applications. mastercard will let you buy items with your face. the company is launching selfi and finger print technology to allow customers to make on line purchases. it will be available on the app, in a few months. the company will be able to tell if it's a legit selfi by

shooting the picture. better way to verify it is you than the selfi. it wasn't an ordinary day for a couple of window washers. >> why forced to someday on a scoff folding 65 stories aboveground. a terrible case of animal abuse. the people charged with

murder case is going before a connecticut highest court. prosecutors are expected to ask the state supreme court to reinstate the 2002 murder conviction. he served more than 11 years for the 75 murder of his neighbor martha moxley. that conviction was overturned in 2013. the supreme court is not expected to rule on the case today. two south carolina teens are charged with shooting a puppy, 18 times with a bb gun. this happened at a rock hill apartment complex over the weekend. police say a 14 and 17-year-old are responsible. the older teen firsts first degree cruelty to animals. the younger teen released pending a court appearance. the 6 week old lab mix is under going treatment at a hospital. >> i never seen somebody maliciously and deliberately shoot at a dog. a dog that's only 6 weeks old. this is as defenseless as an animal gets. >> the puppy is expected to

if convicted the two could face up to five years behind bars and a $5000 fine. two window washers in new york were unhurt after they ended up stuck along the side of a skyscraper. both working 65 floors up when the scaffolding stalled. mechanics couldn't get it moving again. the workers had to wait for firefighters to remove a pane of glass to bring them inside the building. a popular ferris wheel in davenport is shutdown for the winter season. it didn't look like it this week. winds caused the gondolas to swing back and forth. gusts reached 60 miles per hour, 20 damaged, one car had to be removed. inspectors checked the wheel for mechanical issues. it will re-open in may. rooftop camera caught the exact moment an earthquake hit in central california. the epi center of the magnitude quake was just north of bakersfield which is between

no reports of injuries. we don't have to worry about earthquakes here, we are worrying about severe weather what we could see later. >> this is one of the bigger threats. something we are concerned about, this morning until the temperatures warm up in to the 60s, we are going to have thunderstorms, but not likely to have a lot of severe weather. the best chance late morning in to the afternoon. let's look at what is going on, we start with headlines this morning, talking about what we are expecting to see around here with this situation for you today. high risk for severe weather, wind damage and tornados are going to be our biggest threats for today. number one, do you know where your safe place is, if we have strong winds like tornados. if you have a basement, a great place to be, the first floor of house or closet or bathroom that doesn't have windows. mobile home, you have enough warning, get in to a sturdy building that's brick. make sure you are getting

be here on wral tv all morning any time, any threat for severe weather we will break in to programming and follow the storms as long as they are a threat. check wral.com, and download our severe weather app. those are good ways to understand the current situation which will change rapidly. a look at the radar picture, everything is quiet around the triangle area now, cells, fairly frequent lightning sanford. the cells are moving quickly, none of these producing severe weather. heavy rain, thunder and lightning and gusty winds with some of these, heading to the north, the lightning died down, person and hillsborough. you can see this moisture streaming up from the south, eventually we get a push of strong air, that's going to be late morning in to the early part of the afternoon, that will up our chances for severe weather. foggy out there, many places

our temperature at the airport 46 degrees, dew point is 45. south hill 43, 43 roxboro, starting to have potential for severe weather likely first south, seeing the warmer air, it's almost 60 clinton, 43 in roxboro. that warm air coming in from the coast will be a concern as we head through the morning. we still have tornado watches in parts of georgias those are the big red boxes. the flashing yellow boxes are severe thunderstorm warnings and the pink boxes are tornado warnings. we had reports of tornados. the storm system has a history of producing severe weather. we take it to 11:00, that point, future cast showing the pop up thunderstorms and later on, the line, certainly future cast tings storms could move in faster than future cast showing it is showing more like mid to late afternoon with the strong

we have the po potential for that as early as late morning. 30 reports of tornado damage with the system down south. we are looking at the bullseye, a level 4, 5 levels of severe storm risks. the rest of the viewing area, level 3, tornados large hail, damaging winds, all a major threat for us toy. seeing that tapering off tonight. blustery for thursday, we will see sunshine and the storms out of here, high temperatures in the mid 50s, maybe a good bit of clean up that has to be done on thursday in to friday. the weekend looks decent. temperatures warm up dramatically sunday to 64. we welcome nbc to the wral family. it's nice to see the weather will be pretty on that day. now, we are not looking at severe weather currently, other threats on the roads this morning. rain and fog, it's a mess.

problems for our morning commute, up tick the number of accidents likely. here at 5:51, we are seeing a couple of accidents on the live commute map on the wet roads. 85 broad street, slowdown and take it easy, everybody is seeing some wet conditions this morning, and other areas seeing fog. zooming in to the triangle area, on the live commute map, the accident on 440 eastbound, capital boulevard, another accident downtown raleigh on blunt street, city farm road. major routes are in pretty good shape. calling all singers, you will have an opportunity. >> giving you the chance to

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py unusually high rising for severe weather. elizabeth gardner will tell us when to expect the storm and the threat of tornados. the system caused deaths and heavy damage in the gulf states. the years that are picking up the pieces. good morning, it is 6:00. this is a very severe weather day here, the potential for storms is high. several systems announced an early release. dupelin will dismiss at 11:30, edgecombe closing 4 hours early today.

at 11:30, wayne county closing at 11:00 a.m. find the full list at the bottom of the screen and any time on wral.com. >> hurtford, closing one hour early? delayed an hour today. thank you, carol. showers out there, nothing severe yet. as the morning progresses, we will see storms ramp up. let's get to elizabeth for what we are going to see the rest of the day. >> big threat for damaging winds and tornados. we may have damaging winds that don't happen while we are having thunderstorms. we will explain that coming up in a minute. let's get you caught up on where the radar is, a cluster of thunderstorms in the western part of the viewing area 30 minutes or so goo. that's moved in to virginia and the lightning died down. it looks quiet, not looking at seve atr, hanot seen any yet this morning. the threat goes up as renee