now. just things that we don't get to see very don't get to see very much. >> mcclean couple that abruptly rescheduled their wedding to beat this blizzard. >> some are covering each other with snow. >> just how strong and dangerous the storm is and will continue to be. >> bad. i wouldn't be out here if i didn't have to work. >> it's really, really bad. i just really hope that everybody stays safe. and that breaking news right now, for the first time since hurricane sandy, the entire metro system is officially closed. trains making their final trips as we speak and the transit agency is shut down for the rest of the weekend. >> there will be no metro service saturday or sunday. metro's general motors says tane is to use saturday cleaned up and to get back on track for

sunday. we've been on the eight for 12 straight hours. not just wee we, but the whole team, we took a break for "nbc nightly news." >> and this is the time that all our storm team 4 meteorologist have been warning us about, when the storm starts to intensify. >> indeed, that is what's happening. heavy snow fall, strong winds, overnight tonight is when this thing kicks up. we're continuing team coverage for you tonight. a group of reporters who have been out in the elements. >> and we want to start things off with the latest changes with this storm right now. the forecast has been spot on for this one, doug and vijay. >> it really has. we're watching what's happening to the south. mixing in fredericksburg. that was not in the forecast. i was thinking that would stay farther south but some of the sleet is trying to move up toward the north a little bit with heavier banding. that's a trend we'll have to watch very, very closely but right now still very heavy snow around d.c. take a look. out towards the airport i'll show you what we're dealing with. reduced visibility there, we are going to see winds increasing.

we're at 23 degrees, winds northeast at 21 miles per hour. that windchill down into the single digits in many locations. eight is the current windchill, d.c., nine in gaithersburg and 11 towards annapolis. it's not only snowing but freezing as well. the winds biting through us and we're seeing winds gusting close to 35 miles an hour. here's what's happening. a lot of snow continuing around the region. look at fredericksburg. it says that we've got some snow down around fredericksburg but if you take a look at the reflectivity here, you notice higher returns and that is possible sleet down there. we are getting reports of sleet. this has been falling as all snow in and around the waldorf area, in and around d.c. we'll continue to watch this moving to the north. very heavy snow fall rates along 301, waldorf around clinton, d.c. that way as well. so we'll watch this as it moves toward the north. the wider view showing the storm, the upper level storm

back to the west, once the upper level storm gets just over us, any sleet down to the south i think changes back over as we get colder air aloft trying to filter in. but we have warmer air towards the -- coming off the ocean and that's changing things over down at places like salisbury and places like that. veronica is outside with more on what we're seeing outside our studios here in northwest. >> reporter: doug, i'm sure you're talking about the conditions outside, what it's like out here. snow fall rates are about a half inch per hour and flakes are getting a bit bigger, looking up into the street light, any of you out there, with the fact that the wind is picking up as well. you can see the snow the blowing around now and if we can zoom to the pat collins official measuring stick. that's five inches, maybe a little more than five inches now off the ground off our team team weather debck. it's cold.

temperatures are in the low 20s. they'll go up slightly overnight. the wind will be picking up as well. as we get out here and measure the snow and the storm team 4 weather deck, if you can come back to me briefly, i managed to snatch a shovel from one of our crew. get a load of this. this is how fluffy the snow is. you can move the snow and it moves right off the deck. that's the light fluffy stuff we have off here now and why it's so much easier to clean now than it will be, vai, midday tomorrow. because midday tomorrow we'll get more of the wet snow on top of the dry snow and it will compact and make it more back breaking. i know winds will be howling at 35, 45, even 50 miles per hour in some locations but in terms of having to deal with lifting the snow and clearing it, it will be the best time of course we mentioned areas that will be of highest impact from the winds right off the bay, right off the potomac, if you live in any of

those locations, anne arundel county, calvert county, you will feel some of the stronger winds overnight. the blizzard warning is up for a good portion of the area. you can see frederick, leesburg, toward prince william, into d.c. and waldorf and that blizzard warning lasts throughout the day tomorrow until 6:00 a.m. sunday. everywhere else in a winter storm warning so this is going to be a snow that we are going to remember by early tomorrow morning when we check out our pat collins measuring stick, the official one here. we may have as much as a foot of snow on the ground and some areas could have as much as 15 inches on the ground. inches, not feet. doug? >> that's exactly right. veronica can't hear but me she promised to bake me a cake next week. >> reporter: doug? >> i heard you, i know you can't hear me. it's great. we have a long way to, go another 24 hours of snowfall in

our area. guys? >> thank you, doug. first it was kids enjoying snow for the first time, then it was a guy skiing, finally a couple cruising around with the convertible top down in a blizzard. >> and who saw it all? jackie bentssen has seen it alln the national mall where the snowplows have working now. jackie? >> reporter: you're making me smile. this has been a day of beautiful images. look at the dome of the nation's capitol lit up at night in this snow. an image we don't see very often. and even if you do, it's just beautiful. we have some pictures from earlier today of what it looked like here on the national mall. we saw a man cross country skiing through this vast expanse of whiteness and just something that you don't get a chance to see in this busy town very often. we also have the joy of seeing

some children from the uthern part of china and some of them had never seen snow before. their tour bus was stuck in town. they're not going to be able to get out and so they let them on the mall and they ran around and saw snow for the first time. that was very exciting. but right now things are, as doug said, changing here. i tell you, i know what sleet is. it's definitely sleeting. the stuff that's coming down right now is 75% sleet at least. so things changing, getting colder right now on the national mall. back to you. >> we've all been talking about that light fluffy snow, jackie. sounds like we got some transition under way out there. jack jackie bensen on the mall. well, that sleet and heavier precipitation is one of the things we are worried about. that's one of the big concerns with this storm is the potential for major power outages. >> and the winds won't help, either. they'll only whip stronger

overnight. we have vince morris from pep co-on the phone. vince, what's the situation and when do you expect the bulk of any outages which we're sure are going to happen to start? >> hi jim, hi doreen. first, let's have three cheers for light, fluffy snow, because so far knock on wood we have not had any serious snow yet but we are bracing for more snow so there's a chance there will be outages which is why we've been echoing what the mayor and governors are saying, please stay off the road, let the road crews do their jobs so if there are outages in the next day or so that our crew can get out and restore power as quick as possible. >> vince, we know pepco has done a lot to trim the trees and to try to do preventative

maintenance for year round now. what is pepco doing to make sure that you can get to people in this -- who do have power outages? are you calling in help from out of state? the surrounding areas, a lot of them are affected by this same storm. >> absolutely. absolutely, doreen. so we've gone far afield. we have crews who have driven down from as far away as upstate new york, new england, folks from maine who came down to pitch in and will work alongside our crews that are local in restoring power. we have crews -- i'm telling you we have folks in trucks idling right this second ready to respond and, again, thankfully, knock on wood, we don't have any outages for them to report to right now but they are ready and we asked for help, mutual asis france the region and we have better than 900, close to a thousand workers ready to stand

shoulder to shoulder with our pepco staff to restore power if we get any reports of outages so we feel we're in better shape to respond to this storm than at any time in the past. >> well, that's great to hear. we appreciate you taking time with us, vince morris from pepco. good luck to you and your crews out there through this weekend. >> thank you, jim. thanks, doreen. >> thank you. tyson's. >> that's where we find dorothy spencer. she joins us now with new conditions. boy, the wind seems to have picked up just from our view of now right now. that snow is really coming down sideways. >> that's exactly what i was going to say. it's been coming down steadily. it seems like you're coming down harder. and now the wind. we're getting more wind gusts and it's sideways. we're here in tysons corner and very little traffic out here. we see the snowplows coming through, the department of

transportation, everyone has been complimenting them, as well as the private contractors. they're going out trying to keep up. it's a difficult job. let's go to video we shot throughout the night. some highlights, so to speak. on occasion we would see people walking or jogging. this isn't a residential area but they might be going to work or the metro station and as we've mentioned, the metro system has now officially shut down as of 11:00. this is one of the stops out here. we saw one of the last trains come through here just within the last few minutes. i was able to speak to one of the private contractors doing works in various parking lots of convenience stores and shopping centers and they're bracing for even more bad weather. >> everyone's pretty much followed suit. they've gone home. that's good. and v-dot is doing as good as job as we can just like we all are. you can't stay ahead of it, just

manage the storm until it stops. >> that's what they're trying to do, just manage things because as soon as they go through, it's -- the roads are covering up again and the wind is blowing everything back out there. and a warning to people with power outages with this hitting throughout the night. have those phone numbers in case you lose power. back to you. >> all right, darcy, be safe tonight. and we will be back with more of our live coverage of the blizzard of 2016 in a moment. stay tuned.

i'm at the live desk with the best story of the night. we just got video from fairfax county firefighters. they rescued a dog tonight from a frozen lake. take a look. a st. bernard had fallen through the ice at woodglen lake. the dog was about 30 feet

offshore. look as they're getting him out of the water. they got to the dog, got him out. a st. bernard so they had to wrestle him out of the water. bless his heart, bless their hearts. they got him out, they got him dry and they -- after 30 minutes they were able to find the owners who took him home. here's what happened. the firefighters say the family was just tubing down a nearby hill when the dog wandered out on to the ice. rescuers say the temperature was just 21 degrees when they made that rescue, which they did. so thanks, guys. well done. back to you. >> somebody gets a big bone tonight. wendy, good pictures. back in the studio, check out how things have kicked up behind us in our front lawn. live look outside. snowing sideways as far as we can tell. back to maryland and the situation in prince georges county right now. >> crews are working hard to keep the area passable. bureau chief tracy wilson has more. >> reporter: we're here at the wawa in capitol heights but i

want to show you how'm think gas station is. because on a normal friday night you'd see a number of people out here but people are not on the roads right now. but what you can see is the high wind, how fast and how hard this snow is coming down. it's really whipping around in this area. i just spoke a little while wag one of the spokespeople for the county executive's office and he was saying they have a call with the national weather service, they do these calls periodically to make sure they're up to date on what they can expect and make sure their resources are in the proper places. he said it was one of the scariest calls they've ever had in terms of hearing about just how strong the impact of this storm is going to be. now, that being said, county officials have been preparing for this as long as the rest of us have, more than a week now of preparation. they have all of their resources on the ground and they're prepared to deal with it. it's also important that you are prepared at home, prepared for the possibility of power going

out for those roads maybe not to be as plowed or to be plowed as quickly as some of us would like them to be. but, again, we're hearing good news about how empty the roads are, with most of this storm coming overnight and in the morning, we're hoping folks will continue to stay off the roads and give these crews the time that they need to do the work that they need. i can tell you, after being out here all day long, we are definitely seeing a decrease in the traffic and people are listening to the warnings. that's a good thing. in capitol heights, tracy wilkins, news 4. this storm is for real. doug and veronica are back in the storm center for us now. we can see in the live picture behind us guys it is againsting more intense out there. >> and it's going to continue to get more intense, both in snow fall rates and intensity. we're seeing that but seeing other changes, too. >> and that's a pocket just down south and east of d.c. around southern maryland, around the northern neck. here's some sleet that's starting to come into the system

and we knew early on that that was one area we had to keep an eye on for the possibility of not? just sleet but ice pellets so we're seeing some change in the upper atmosphere right now. we'll keep an eye on that. check some things and have more to just how far to the north that line could move. >> that's always the question where the rain and mix line continues to be. right now we're at 23 degrees, winds out of the northeast at 22. we're seeing gusts close to 35 miles an hour. and that's what you need over the course of a few hours to get blizzard like conditions. here's the radar. you notice bright white going on. i've gotten reports out of fredericksburg that this has been falling as sleet around the fredericksburg area for almost three hours and, yes, that would bring down totals in n the fredericksburg areas. very heavy snow coming through prince georges you want s couns

good snow coming down here. we're getting reports of sleet around culpeper, around montrose and southern maryland, this is what i'm very watching, heavy snow wood bridge to clinton towards d.c., that's moving in, that will lower visibility below a half mile and we would see one to two inches of snow with that. this is the area we'll see snow changing over to sleet for a time, maybe extended time, i'm still doing research to see what's going on but what we know is we'll get colder air on the backside of this system overnight and it will change back to snow but most of this, i can almost guarantee, is almost all the sleet. down towards the montrose area. talking to somebody on e-mail, e-mail me again, i want to know what you're seeing towards st. mary's county. veronica, we've been tracking this all evening long, we knew this might be an issue down south but it's coming farther north. >> that it is and let me show

you the scenario we had around midnight. the pocket around southern maryland, the northern neck but now if i can grab the te telestrator here, you can see maybe just west of beaver damage and, of course the idea is that it may be advancing ever to-to-the north you'll notice the pink at 7:00 a.m. by noon we get colder air into the system as it makes its way up to the east and we get more of that easterly wind as well. 3:00 during the afternoon on saturday it's still moderate snow falling. we don't go light until 7:00, 9:00 then you can see the system pulling out by 11:00 p.m. around midnight so we'll take a big sigh of relief there as the system makes its way out of here so we talk about the snowfall amounts, here's where we could have that ten to 20 now.

in the forecast we may be dwe tweaking our forecast. >> i have some reports of sleet around spotsylvania. >> all right, we'll see you one more time. our coverage continues here on news 4 at 11:00. >> if you're like us, you're starting to feel confused about what day it is. a holiday monday, but still friday, the "tonight show" is up next and here's jimmy fallon. >> thank you doreen and jim and everyone in washington, d.c. jeff daniels is my guest tonight. [ cheers and applause ] plus we

right now we're usually bringing you caps and wizards highlight bus tonight there were no games tonight. the caps and ducks games and the wizards jazz games were postpone bid the nhl earlier today. makeup games will be announced soon, we don't know if the caps penguins game will go forward on sunday. it's supposed to be played at 12:30 at the verizon center. team officials say they'll make that call in the morning. meteorologist amelia siegel is tracking the road conditions once more for us. she has been all over our region this evening. >> she's in the storm team 4 x 4. where are you now, amelia? >> well, doreen, on 295 in southeast heading northeast. the roads not in great shape.

the roads are barren, but we've not seen anybody out here, completely quiet and the snow is falling hard, visibility here less than a quarter of a mile and it's frigid outside, the temperature 23 degrees but when you factor in the winds outside. our dash camera traveling just under 30 miles an hour and it's spectacular. we haven't had winter. guys, this the heavier snow we've seen so far this evening. i've been tracking conditions since 11:00 a.m. this morning. roads conditions where the plows have been across the area are okay but in these areas clouds haven't been here as frequently, road conditions aren't great.

if we didn't have four-wheel drive right now getting around would not be as easy but we are able to get around easily at a safe pace right now. again our plan is to head back to the station and of course doug and veronica updating the forecast and they'll have the latest in a little bit. right now from the storm team 4 x 4, tracking snowy roads and a quiet scene out here in southeast d.c., guys. >> great work throughout the night, amelia segal, thank you. we will see you tomorrow. is and we want to let you know that we're not going away. live cut-ins overnight. live continuing coverage starts

it's been a long night and the storm continues to rage, doug and veronica are wrapping things up in the storm center. >> we'll be here all night long. i'll be back in here around 8:00 tomorrow morning. you get to sleep a bit more. >> amelia segal and i will be taking over during the afternoon. butor our viewers, thank you for watching, we rely on you for weather reports which is interesting because of what we're seeing. >> we want to thank everybody for joining us. this is going to be the worst part of the storm. don't be surprised to be woken up with thundersnow and wind.

guys? >> thank you both. great job today again. we're back on the air 5:00 a.m. tomorrow. doreen and i will be back here at 5:00, 6:00, and 11:00. 10:00 a special, too, tomorrow night. >> we hope you will join us for that. stay inside, stay safe, and stay with news 4 and nbc washington on your mobi

[ cheers and applause ] ♪ >> steve: from studio 6b in rockefeller center in the heart of new york city, it's "the tonight show starring jimmy fallon." tonight, join jimmy and his guests -- jeff daniels. lilly singh. musica