good morning. i'm andrea roane. thanks for joining us. it is wednesday, february 10th, but it feels like we are living the movie got ground hog day." here's a look at the storm headlines them blizzard warning is expanded. high winds could make things worse as the day goes on and with lows in the 20s or teens in the upcoming days we could have problems with refreeze in the morning. howard bernstein is here. as i said, we feel as if we are living the movie "ground hog day "another storm and now real blizzard conditions out there. >> i know it has been a long week and a half for us. you have been dealing with it. it is dangerous though, i know you want to get out but hunker down. we will get through this. it will take couple of days and the snow and the wind. the wind is the bigger story. although we are getting plenty of snow, don't discount that but the winds cranked up and we are having all sorts of problems. let's go to the weather computer. it covers just about everyone

until 7 p.m. winds 35 miles an hour sustained to three hours or frequent gusts above 35. we are getting that already along with visibilities below one quarter mile. show you the storm. had some sleet and freezing rain last night. even a lull. that has passed. a piece of energy comes across and you can track this through charlottesville and richmond and now approaching parts of even norfolk may get a little snow out of this. around here it has been snowing to beat the band. a little lighter across northern virginia but impressive. won't be surprised if there is lightning and topper shutt has made it in to the building. >> another cry tear a ya is a quarter mile but on the way in it was almost zero in spots. if you get disoriented put your hazards on but really stay home. this is worse in terms of visibility than the last storm. look at doppler 9000 and then go to the computer. some heavier bands of snow and these have been wrapping around the storm. i'm going to zoom in.

inside the beltway and just north of town, around bethesda and chevy chase, around east- west highway, very heavy banding. around silver spring and chevy chase, out river road. here's the east-west highway. very heavy snow there and also on the beltway from greenbelt down to lanham and over to fedex field. we have no shortage of snow, but as howard mentioned last night the signature will be wind and i think that is undeniable. the back edge of the precipitation is right here but it is not moving. we will watch that carefully. it will pull to the north and east. it will taper off today. look at the wind gusts. this is a bad sign. gusting to 46 miles an hour best of town. that is blizzard conditions now. 32-mile an hour wind gusts at national and they are going to get stronger as we on. visibilities in some spots under a quarter mile. and that is the definition of

the blizzard. to the north, quarter mile in gaithersburg, quarter mile in frederick. less than a quarter mile in dulles and a quarter mile in fredericksburg. especially where the band of snow is really where the blizzard conditions are occurring. take it easy. winds will be with us all day, long after the snow stops. we will see blowing and drifting and we will see probably considerable drifting before the day is out. maybe 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 foot drift. back to you. a warning about trying to drive in maryland. kelly from the maryland state highway administration is on the phone with us. kelly u talk to our viewers and anyone who is thinking of going out. >> within the last hour or so we have seen a huge spike in the number of spinouts. we have had a couple of tractor- trailer incidents, portions of western maryland back to the dc area. we are imploring, begging of motorists to please, if you

don't have to travel today, please don't. crews are working on plowing operations and spending a significant amount of time assisting motorists and assisting with crashes. the wind gusts have picked up. the 301 bridge is closed due to whiteout conditions and the wind gusts reaching 30-plus miles an hour. we are begging motorists if you don't have to go out, this is not the day to do so. >> when did you close the bridge. >> earlier this morning. the wind gusts picked up and the power lines and falling trees will be an issue. so if you don't have to head out, please don't do so. hunker down for the day. >> howard and topper are telling us the blizzard alerts will be in place until 7 p.m. are your drivers still going to try to keep up the pace of trying to push snow off the roads even in blizzard conditions? >> our crews going to continue to plow as they need to.

our crews are well versed in this. we have dealt with storms in the past but combining that with the traveling public they may not be familiar with lane markings and signs and signals. this is not the ideal condition for the public. so with are asking if they can stay home today, please do so. >> she is talking about the number of spinouts rising expotentially on maryland roadways. if you don't have to go out, she says, don't go out. leave the roadways so that the crews can plow them as best they can. and of course the harry nice bridge is closed until conditions improve. let's go to angie with an update on the traffic. >> you saw the wind blowing the snow. limiting the visibility. one bright spot we are seeing is the fact that we are hardly seeing any drivers out there. that's a great thing. that's what we want to see. where drivers are hitting the road. on allentown road a new

accident. losing a couple of lanes out there and the inner loop, two lanes are lost because of crash activity. switching the camera over and show you 270, you can barely see the pavement. the snow is coming down real hard. at 109 more crash activity reported here and the main interstates out here are untouched when it comes to crash activity and the vulnerability of drivers, even in four-wheel drives. we are watching big cars becoming disabled here. we are watching the power lines shake here. remember, if you are driving, as topper mentioned put on the hazards and watch the acceleration. do it slowly. do the best you can to maintain control of your car. on 395 northbound, past duke street, we are looking at snow removal off to the right side. this is actually causing a lot of drivers to slow down, which is a good thing. very icy and dicey conditions on the interstate to and from the district. one last camera for you.

constitution and 17th, we are watching the lanes disappear in front of us. the tire tracks, there evaporating in front of us as the snow continues to fall. andrea, back to you. >> we want to check with the live crews to see what it looks like at ground level. kristin fisher has been out all morning and is live in gaithersburg. you got a gold star for your observations. what can you see now. >> hopefully i can keep it up. >> we have been watching the conditions detear rate since 3:30 this morning and now you can see it is a near whiteout. we have been watching the winds pick up and it is really starting to rock right now. so much it has been shaking our live truck the last half hour or so. as for the roads, you are looking at 385. you can see the traffic is moving but very slowly. i know you have heard it but i'm going to say it again, if you do not have to go out, stay at home. i have been asking people on

facebook and twitter. anyone who lives in the gaithersburg area to let me know what conditions are like where they are. jerry wrote i'm in middle brook and great seneca highway. it is a mess. complete whiteout conditions. this is a blizzard. and another person said just drove from gaithersburg and almost white out on great seneca highway. roads are really slick and a sheet of ice is reported on 124 east between germantown road and belvoir avenue. a lot of cars getting stuck and sliding around. be safe. that's what we are hearing on twitter, facebook. a lot of people are talking about the storm this morning because you can see this stuff is just gnarlly. we have been getting about six inches of snow here in gaithersburg since it started to fall. and it is stacking up here in this big snow drift. look at this stuff coming down. under all of this is the ice from last saturday's storm and you know what, that storm on saturday, people on dwighter

and facebook, all the social networking sites were calling it snowmageddon, snowvechkin but we are new names. people are calling this storm, snow end in sight. snow he didn't and my personal favorite cluster flake. this is a cluster out here this morning. and we are seeing road crews hitting 355. we have seen a lot of plows and standing trucks but when you see this much wind, this low visibility and this much coming down it is really tough. this is a shell station in gaithersburg. this driveway was clear this morning and now you can see they have gaps but -- they have gas but cars are having a tough time getting here. in preparation for the storm, crew unless the city of alexandria tried to repeat as many roads as possible. the city's mayor asked for the public's help to let crews finish the job. >> we want our residents to stay home and be safe. spend time with their family

and let us get out and take care of the emergency snow routes. get them cleared and plowed and so forth. >> reporter: once the storm is over mayor uhl says he needs residents to clear the sidewalks and fire hydrants and cheng the gutters and sewers to make sure they are not blocked. did the pretreating of the streets in alexandria pay off this morning? jessica doyle is live in alexandria with more. where are you, jessica in. >> well, andrea, we're on king street and south royal. we had an emergency crew vehicle drive past us and you can pretreat but once that snow covers the pretreatment you are out of luck. we have to tell you this morning the city of alexandria declared a blizzard warning until 7 p.m. tonight. that alert went out at 8 a.m. this morning. you know, part of that, they are telling people to stay home. they are asking you to clear off your hydrants and we have a clear hydrant here. the reason this hydrant is clean is because this spot where we are at is 15 to 20

national guardsmen are staying and emergency crews from other locals who have come to alexandria to help out because the situation is so dire here. so much snow accumulation. the city hasn't been able to keep up with it. i want to tell you about the roads. we have people walking on the roadways because there is no sidewalk. there is caution tape it is because of the risk risk of falling snow. so much wind and ice are blowing off of trees. it is a little distressing when you see that coming at you. the wind is incredibly strong. the snow is blowing horizontally. as for the roadways the center lanes are fine. it is not a problem to drive on that. the problem is when the plow comes down it kicks up big pieces of snow and ice and that is hard to get over. i will show you something even with a four-wheel vehicle you

won't be able to handle. this is a piece of ice i found in the roadway. can you see the size of it? this is why we are telling people, do not drive today. if you can avoid it, stay inside. if you are walking on the street you have to be careful. back to you. >> jessica, that you can't even get a snow blower through. so be careful. dupont circle usually a bustling intersection at this time of the morning but it is anything but. michael wooten is here now and he has a special guest with him. good morning, michael. >> yeah. we are here with chief rubin of the city of washington, d.c. and chief, i will tell you this is a rough situation out here. what's the message to people who have to be out in this. >> it is riff and hopefully no one has to be out. if you are an essential worker and providing emergency services, we wish you the best of luck but those are the only folks that ought to be out and about. we hope that everybody stays indoors and doesn't add to the

difficult conditions that we are seeing. >> talk to me about the conditions. i know it is overwhelming to the crews trying to clean the streets and puts pressure on your department responding to emergencies. >> it does. we are using the snow chains which are aggressive and allows us to get through the neighborhoods but we have had difficulties. we have six four-wheel drive pickup trucks. they have been used throughout the process. along with four humvees have been assigned to us by the dc national guard. a shoutout to general schwartz and his great folks who are doing a great job for us. we have been able to get to each and every call in a reasonable timely fashion. but i think if folks stay indoors today. we haven't seen many folks out and we hope that will be the case. >> reporter: there are nonweather-related calls you have to go out on. you mentioned if folks can clear the snow away from fire hydrants that would help you out. >> as folks clear off the walks, if they will take a second to clear around the fire

hydrants we greatly appreciate it and secondly we can connect to the fire hydrant quicker. we do 400 emergency responses in the district of columbia each and every day. since the storm has hit, we are probably closer to 800 to 900. we have seen a wide variety of call and have had several children born. yesterday they delivered a child before we could get to the hospital. a lot of heart attacks, relative lifting and shoveling the heavy snow. automobile accidents, slips and falls. it's been a plethora of emergency responses for our department. >> reporter: you guys are fully staffed, or are you having problems getting crews in. >> we are actually doubled staffed. we have added additional staff, firefighters, police officers, doctors, nurses and even reporters understand how important it is to be out here, in your case, to report the message, and keep people inned. in our case 0 to respond to emergency calls. we have had approximately 20 roof or building collapses of

some form or fashion from extreme to minor. nonetheless we are seeing a lot of activity. hence we added an extra shift, at least throughout the event and i'm hearing words that perhaps by weekend we may have round three, which is really unnerving. >> absolutely. chief rubin, thank you so much for your time. good luck today and we hope folks will take the advice and stay indoors if you can. >> stay warm an we appreciate the great coverage you are providing. >> thank you so much. >> yeah, again a very clear message from the fire chief that folks should stay home. in the time we have been here in dupont circle we haven't seen any plows go through the area. they are simply overwhelmed. luckily there is not a lot of traffic here. there is a lot of foot traffic and it is picking up as folks try to get to work at this hour. so hopefully if you can stay inside that's the best advice. >> all right. michael wooten reporting live from dupont circle and we thank chief rubin for speaking with us, as well. we will look at the latest power outages and howard will

tell us when the storm will move out of here, as well. hope the chief didn't have any information on round three coming our way. we'll be right back.

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. outages are back up in virginia from this morning. virginia dominion power reports almost 3,000 outages in the northern virginia region, just under 200 in the shenandoah area. and i just spoke to family and we have lost our cable. so they can't hear us at this point. we will be streaming later on and we still have internet service. >> if you cable goes out, go to this internet and you can watch us. it will be a busy day. >> get started. i know you don't have time to wait. >> a dangerous situation right now. and the danger will be with us the rest of the day. southwest of here, culpeper, southwest of there not nearly as bad. winds are not as strong and the snowfall not as heavy. we will talk about the dangerous storm. we will remind you if you are not prepared for a power outage, you know, think of that. get your flash lights ready and

other stuff. a lot of power outages. we are having them. we will have more as the winds are picking up. winds this morning, sustained 15 to 30. gusts to 60 in manassas. 58.7. frank in purcellville had that. so big big wins. and this afternoon sustained winds will be 20 to 40 out of the northwest. the snowfall break down, another three to six this morning. total by noon and it will be tough to measure. one to four additional this afternoon. after 6:00. could see a little snow east and northeast of dc. maybe an inch or two. storm totals generally four to 14 from southern maryland and the metro. it will be locally though. north and east, howard county north and east where it is snowing to beat the band. here's the forecast. heavy snow this morning. becoming windy already. temperatures 20 to 30. we even have teens now. colder air is moving in. winds 15 to 30 an gusts to 60.

snow this afternoon. very windy. temperatures in the 20s if not upper teens. northwesterly winds 20 to 40 miles an hour and tonight the early snow east, mostly cloudy, windy and cold. winds are up 20 to 30 out of the northwest. blizzard warnings now, including frederick county, virginia. south and west, culpeper you go south and west of there, shenandoah county virginia you are in a winter storm warning until afternoon. and 4:00 here and 7:00. the storm had alulas night. drizzle complete and freezing rain. i want you to follow this piece of energy. like a bowling ball across southern virginia. it is cranking past richmond over to williamsburg, norfolk and this piece of energy stretches out right here. this gave us the wind and the heavy snow we have been dealing with the last half hour or so. it is coming down in parts with live doppler hd i will throe throw it over to top.

>> we are looking at blizzard conditions and warnings through 7. you might think the snow will taper off this evening but it is not a question of whether snow is falling but visibility and wind and howard has been talking about that all morning. look at doppler. we had this looping. and notice how the bands of snow are moving east to west. counterintuitive but we get the low pressure off the coast and the back edge of the precipitation. so not so unusual in this type of situation. it will rotate around this way and the heaviest precipitation in terms of snowfall is up to the north in howard county. we have been watching this now the past 45 minutes. very heavy snows. two to three inches an hour up 32. this is the heaviest snow we can find right now. to the east of 97, this is georgia avenue here and here's route 32 through clarksville and out 108 toward columbia. this is a heavy band of snow and some heavy bands toward colesville and new hampshire

avenue, briggs cheney road, as well. look at the wind gusts. they are here and this will be the signature of the storm. the winds are gusting at dulles to 43. 43-mile an hour gusts at national. in fact, look at how the contours are. we are in the bull's eye of the heavy snow and in the bull's eye of the high winds on the coast right now. georgetown, salisbury, gusting to only 22. visibility a quarter mile at andrews, a quarter mile at national. 1/8 of a mile at dulles and that's the criteria. you have to have 35-mile an hour winds and frequent gusts and visibility under a quarter mile or under and we are meeting that criteria. we will see what it looks like outside on the weather terrace. >> it is a blizzard. it is like a blizzard because it is a blizzard. you have to do this for three hours in a row, too. i don't think we will have a doubt of doing that, though. we came close to do it last

weekend and in december but this is really truly the first time we have done this. to show you what a major problem and it is really the drifting snow, once again a path we cleared here on the weather terrace. i cleared it after i went inside not too long ago it is covered over. there is no point in making another path it will be covered once again. at this point you have to cover up the good pants and put on the snow pants to come out out and show you how it is going. we have a bad combination on the blowing and drifting snow as we have been showing you. it is still coming down. i have all of the snow reports coming in, too. wind reports. everything you have been doing at wusa9.com. send me those reports and i will put it on-line so you can see what you sent in. right now it is probably pointless to measure snow out there as these drifts are going to accumulate and get larger as we go through the day. >> some of those reports

sherriestown, pennsylvania, that's a lot of snow. four to eight inches across the region, locally a foot. one thing we have seen in the last hour, hour and a half is that wave as come across with the intense snow and wind, the temperatures have dropped like a rock. 19 in the shenandoah valley out to cumberland, winchester 20. it is 23 andrews saint indigos, cambridge, easton, annapolis, you are still 30. but as that comes toward you, your temperatures are going down and snow picking up. annapolis in the next 30, 45 minutes you will be experiencing what we have been experiencing here for the last hour, even across southern maryland. it's not that far away now. probably within the next half hour. temperatures have gotten much colder. generally 20 to 25 west of town and 25 to 30 east of town. we have 25. we are gusting to 43 sustained and 22. wind chill at ten. wind chills will fall to the single digits today. another reason why you don't want to be outside. the couple -- the storm, a

couple of pieces of energy are feeding in and helping to enhance the coastal storm which is developing. deepest pressure is in ocean city, heavy snow through philly, long island, blizzard warnings are up there as well and some spots between philly and new york could get two feet of wind-driven snow. in some cases worse for them. this is what we are thinking as far as the totals when we are done with the snow. a foot or more across northern maryland, baltimore north and east. we may have to, depending on the coastal, bring the totals down in this region and see how the snow wraps up behind the storm. six to 12 for the metro. seeing high totals in the mountains of west virginia. 12 to 14 inches already. south and west, away from the storm it will be lighter for

you, four to six for you toward charlottesville. we have the snow and wind, heavier snow this morning and lighter this afternoon. the winds will stay up. at times 40 to 50 miles an hour. thursday, friday and saturday, windy tomorrow but friday, saturday and sunday we are okay. a clipper monday. i hate to say it could give us more snow and tuesday looking at temperatures still cold. so we will get a slow melt but we don't need more snow. we are following this all morning, devon and dave will be here with you all day. hang in there. back to andrea. some schools have already called it quits for the week. details coming up. and we will check in with one of our roverring drivers. we'll be right back.