ready or not, it is here, the first and hopefully the last major winter storm of 2017. good morning, welcome to wake up washington. today is tuesday march 14th. i'm jan jeffcoat. you can see we have delays and closings running at the bottom of your screen. >> i'm mike hydeck. boy to we have a huge team to get you around the whole region there morning. you're going to see where it is. melissa nord we're going to start with you. what a tricky storm this is. >> it's got several hours to go here, and we've got a mixed bag of precipitation depending on where exactly you are. we're tracking sleet. we're tracking rain. we're tracking freezing rain and of course we can't forget about that heavy snow in some areas that's been falling for a couple of hours and will be picking up in intensity as we work our way throughout the 5 and 6 a.m. hour

first alert live doppler. this is live scanning the skies. we're able to depict with this radar what kind of precipitation you're seeing out there. are you seeing rain, are you seeing snow, and we've been talking about the rain/snow mix for the past couple of days, how that would even the snow totals. that ended up setting over 95 and just northwest of 95. we've got sleet happening, and it's been falling all night. you've probably heard it in d. c. up toward silver spring towards gaithersburg and rockville. in german town you're seeing sleet mixing in. back west into fairfax county also seeing mainly sleet. you transition over from sleet into snow. we're seeing a snow sleet mixture in places like clarksburg and by the time you get to frederick it's mainly snow at that point. the further south that you are the more warm air that's mixing in with this system so we've got rain, sleet in

la plata. this is going to last for quite a while longer. i expect the intensity of the snow to continue picking up in parts of northern maryland over the next three, four, five hours. we're going to still accumulate. you may look out your back door and say hey, there's only a couple inches of snow on the ground. it's going o'pick up. 4:30 this morning we've got that mixture of sleet over 95 heading into montgomery county. places like frederick, leesburg, a little more snow mixing in. we go closer to 7 a.m. there's going to be colder air starting to work its way in or on the back side of things. we'll start to see a transition from sleet over to snow in places like northern montgomery the snow showers will be wrapping around. coming into d. c. if you were to try to commute in this morning between 8, 9:00, we'll be dealing with snow showers and it keeps going through about midday today with light accumulations on top of that between about 10 and noon

afternoon. okay. so impacts are going to be big. we've been talking about how much snow you're going to get based on where you are. totals a little northward were those highest totals due to the sleet we've been getting all night. gaithersburg right on the border heading into the 7 to 12 inch range. we're definitely going to get double-digits westminster, hagerstown frederick expecting mainly double-digit snow marks. you get closer through montgomery county, because of the sleet we have seen and that's been falling for the past five hours, it's cutting down the snow totals, so right now i'm putting most of d. c., southern montgomery county and into eastern fairfax county, most of fairfax county in a 3 to 7-inch snow total range, much less as you head further east. roads are worsening. we'll continue to track bad conditions on the roads. travel delays if you're trying to fly out of anywhere, thousands of flights canceled. one thing to note, winds are going to pick up later today. this is the heavy wet snow falling. 'r

that are blowing with the heavy wet snow later in the afternoon. we'll have some wind gusts to 35 to 40 miles an hour. lots to track. we'll take you through some of the forecast area by area in just a bit. we have seen a lot of people driving into work today. talked to our manager carlton. on his way in it was him and the plow trucks. we do have a couple of accidents and we are seeing a lot of slow traffic as well. normally at this time of the morning this would all be green and it is just slow moving out there. if you're on the inner loop of the beltway by telegraph road between there and eisenhower avenue found on the traffic lane camera this area where we're seeing delays. you can see the snow mainly even on this ramp as you would be outside of the beltway. they're clearing the major roads but you are going to run into many many slick spot ands snow in many cases. from there taking a look at the beltway over on the west side, if you're here by george washingtme

little bit ago. now it's slow traffic. if you're starting down by the 95 interchange in springfield heading up to the american legion bridge, it's about a 24 minute drive. metro's going to open at 5:00. however, they're running on a saturday schedule so that means trains will come every 12 minutes, and they will still have single tracking between braddock road and huntington and van dorn street. that's safetrack surge 13. they're not going to be doing the work there today. the crews that would be doing the work on that single tracking and safetrack surge 13 they are going to be helping with this snow removal. metro bus on a severe snow plan. they're only running the major roadway routes and metro access at this point is closed. thanks a lot ellen. we have a huge storm team this morning. look at all those faces out there. we have plenty of people on the ground all over the place. as for your plans today when you want to get around we're going to let you know what's open, what's closed. we are waiting on a couple of things. dcps has not made their

decision on closing or delays. prince george's county public schools has not made a decision. >> federal agencies we got word they are going to be on a three- hour delay. you can telecommute this morning if you would like to. almost all schools are closed. andrea mccarren kicks off our coverage. she is in one of the areas that isxpected to be hardest hit by the storm, andrea. >> reporter: good morning jan and mike. this is one of the nastiest storms i can remember. the fast falling snow this morning has now been replaced by just pellets of ice that are pummeling us out here. first, let's take a look at the snow accumulations. i don't know, i'd guess a couple of inches here. it started around 9:30 last night. looked out my hotel room window, and then when i woke up still just high wind gusts, snow falling very rapidly. in the last, i don't know, 30 minutes or so,

replaced by ice, which is like pummeling us like needles or sand. we are on urbana pike across the street from francis scott mall. if you turn around you can see plows and backhoes at work already clearing some of the businesses here. i'd be very surprised if they open, but we will keep you posted on that. what's really astonishing this morning is the wind gusts. i don't know if you can see this sign, well, now of course there was a bit of a lull, but i also -- maybe you can hear this ice that's really beating us up. there goes our lights. hang on a second. let me get that. our light, which has a sandbag on it just blew over. take a look at this sign just flapping back and forth. as you've noted mostly plows out on the roads. it was interesting, my hotel everybody got t

and was out the door, i think mostly plow drivers, sand truck drivers and utility workers just waiting to spring into action. we are closely monitoring frederick police, fire, paramedics. there's a lot of activity this morning, but nothing significant enough to bring to you just yet. we are staying on top of it. reporting live with photojournalist christopher mullen, i'm andrea mccarren, back you. >> when we walked outside it was that heavy sort of like ice pelting you. >> really wet. sometimes you get the snow and it's light and fluffy, this is not that snow. >> mike drove in this morning. what'd you think? >> now it's changed though since we drove in two hours ago, it was like this much slush and you could see it spraying away from your tires. now it's getting heavier and wetter. >> and we always say ice is the great equalizer. maybe that's one thing, if you have all wheel drive or four wheel drive you're not going to

>> larry miller is with us. where are you larry, and what are the conditions like in. >> reporter: good morning to you. we are traveling westbound on i- 66 right now making our way towards gainesville. i've got to let you know that probably the biggest trouble we had this morning was trying to get from wisconsin avenue where our studios are located to the capitol beltway and making our way to i-66. what we found is the roads were a lot more dicey in your neighborhood compared to what things are shaping up on the interstate. i want to give you a look and show you how things are shaping up at least along i-66. this is the westbound side. they've done an exceptional job of trying to get least the snow on the shoulder of i-66. the issue you'll find in the lanes will be the ice. that's going to slow you down considerably. we're drive at least 20 miles under the speed limit. we've seen more snowplows out here today than we have seen vehicles. i've got to let you know that we're starting to see at least some volume, sl

make their way on to the eastbound side of i-66 making their way in towards the capital beltway. the good news is at least from our vantage point we haven't seen temperature too much in the way of accidents. for the cars that have been driving along i-66 they've been staying three to four cars away from some of the other cars around them. that's what you want to do when conditions are like this. it's dangerous, cars can move out of control and the conditions out here are just quite dicey. you don't want to get yourself into trouble. i want to let you know, again, that virginia's done an exceptional job of doing a lot of pretreatment that started on sunday. we're going to have much more on how things are shaping up on i-66 in a half an hour. >> i'm curious because mike and i drove in around 2:00. i know you've been on the roads for a while. can you describe how the conditions have gotten better or te

>> reporter: i'll say this, i feel like the conditions are starting to improve slightly. we know that the weather is certainly going to take a turn within the next hour or so, but i think what i can say is that that pretreatment has actually done a pretty good job because they've been able to clear a lot of the roads, because they've been able to put that salt and brine down in a lot of areas along 66, along the capital beltway, that has been really helpful in trying to get trees roads cleaned up quickly. you're seeing nothing but snowplows lined up along the shoulder, which is another aspect that's helpful to this. >> as you saw from the camera things look pretty good. let's check on loudoun county. that's where evan koslof is. i think he's in leesburg. >> reporter: yeah, it is still coming

standing here i can feel it hitting me against the face. it's hard, it's sleet. if you look down you'll see how much we have here. i do have a ruler. i introduce you to dan kelly. he's a plow driver here. dan, why don't we do the measurements here. >> clothes let's do it. >> looks like about 3, maybe 4 inches. >> 3 to 4, yeah, i'd say. >> what's it looking like out there on the roads? >> it's not bad, three, i mean as soon as you go through and make a pass it comes back and you've got to do it again, but it's not as bad as i think everyone was expecting unfortunately. >> because we were just talking about how much you like snow right here. it's been a little frustrating. this is a big day right. >> sitting around waiting and then you know, nothing comes about far while. it's a little trusting but at least we're -- frustrating but at least we're getting to have some fun now. >> we'll send it back to you. >> please tell him that, the morning is still young.

snow to fall. >> they says morning's still young, we still have a lot of snow coming down. >> we're very optimistic here. it's going to happen. >> you know what's interesting. i always feel like leesburg, percyville, i have my inlaws who live in percyville, i was going to wake them up. >> i'm expecting that gaithersburg which i believe is where hilary lane is in montgomery county this morning, things can get dicey quickly. hilary what's it look like? >> we'll try to get to hillary in a little bit. >> the gaithersburg officials did issue a snow emergency until 9:00 this morning. the morning is still long. we still have a big system that's moving in right now, and we could still see a lot more snow in the next hour or two. >> now i think we have hilary, she's live in gaithersburg. that's my hometown

look? >> you can see there's a few inches continually falling from the sky. many of my colleagues have said this is freezing rain and i think they described it pretty well. it's just pummeling us in the face. when we first got out, our car was covered in ice. you can still see a little bit of it now. the ice is just sticking to cars if you're heading out, you're definitely going to want to leave yourself some time to scrape that identity off your car. it's very quiet when it comes to cars on the road. we did just see a plow driver. they have been waiting for this march storm, of course this is their business. they say it's very icy out there. they're encouraging everyone to be careful. they said they have been awake since 9 p.m. last night and they keep going and going. they do all the hotels in this area, and they say they expect this to take a little longer than it usually does for them because of the ice. it takes them a little longer to get in there and physically pull the snow off the ground. but they're working, they're clearing the roads. we're goin

continues to fall and we'll bring you updates. >> where are you in gaithersburg, it's a pretty big town. what part of the town are you in? >> yeah, we're right here by the home wood suites right off the main highway here. we see the cars continually come in off this main highway, yeah, snow's still falling around here. >> okay. thank you hilary. someone just called our weather center wanting to know about school closures. d. c. public schools and prince george's county schools have not called it yet. prince george's county schools are going to wait until 5 a.m. this morning. >> they said that on their facebook page. >> we promise we'll let you know. it's going to happen soon. we'll let you know. >> 4:15, melissa is continuing to track the nor'easter it felt nor'easter. it's continuing to barrel in. >> please send

as you just saw from all of our reporters in the field, the last 15 minutes we're not all getting just snow. we're getting lot of sleet. this will potentially cut down on some of those snow totals. topper and i have been talking about this for days. those areas will end up with the highest totals of snow. however, we have in some areas a half inch to an inch of sleet on top of snow. the roads are going to be kind of crunchy mess out there, so i advise you not to try and travel from this point forward until the storm winds down and we get going later this morning after the plows do their jobs very well. sleet is mixing in with snow. frederick and leesburg, and it's just -- as you head into gaithersburg and fairfax county, d. c. as well, we're just dealing with plain sleet. it's a sleet and rain

county. let's go through the time line. total snow forecast combined with sleet because sleet pounces snow measurements for the weather service, 3 to 7 inches north side of town. you get the south side of town 1 to 3 inches. that's mainly sleet for you with a little bit of snow on top of that later this morning. 7-plus inches as you head into northern montgomery county. the bulls eye will still be westminster to frederick over to hagerstown right in this area right here. we're going to get good snowfall rates by 6 a.m. they will last for a few hours and we could have snow rates 1 to 2 inches per hour. still dealing with that mixture around the 95 corridor. it's a mixture of snow and sleet as you head into northern montgomery county. i think things are going to change back over as we get closer to 6 a.m. to snow in places like frederick. so by the time we get towards 7 a.m. through noon, we're changing. we've got all snow up to the northwes

in the metro area, and then changing back over to a mix briefly for some spots further in southern maryland. lots to track. we want to see your photos of the snow coming in. how much do you have. use the hashtag snow day 9. we'd love to share your photos on air. tweet melissa nord wx. >> we want to show you some of the photos that have already been submitted, especially if you send photos like what joseph sent us. can you the special little friend there, that cute dog in the snow. joseph sent us this photo earlier today. mike hanson is in helping us out. you can see a little bit of snow dusting there as well. kendra ann kaiser, how beautiful is this photo. those lights look gorgeous. she's from west virginia and took this stunning photo. to send us more photos like this and also christopher short he might be a meteorologist himself. looks how detail he is

caption, now small flakes in page county. this was late last night. the roads at this point were just wet. send us your photo, we'll be sharing them all morning. 4:21. so how much longer before this whole thing is out of here. >> meteorologist melissa nord is keeping an eye on the storm. we're going to be with you all morning. we have a big team just for you we will have

welcome back. wake up washington in extended coverage for the winter storm tracking through the area. we have seen over laths six hours or so really a transition in a lot of spots from snow over to sleet. it has been sleeting nonstop. in d. c. we have about a half inch to an inch of just pure sleet on top of a little bit of snow that fell earlier yesterday evening. here's the latest, scanning the sktr

precipitation. it's a mixture of sleet and snow. frederick and leesburg, when you get into montgomery county, it is all sleet, and sleet continues for the 95 corridor. when you head east, we're starting to see more in the way of rain mixing with sleet. now, what this is going to end up doing is it's cutting down our snow totals because the sleet it's a little more compact than snow itself. snow totals in the immediate metro area 95 corridor, a little lower than they could have been if we stayed with all snow and that sleet line would have been further to the east. heavy snow rates i think they're going to be picking up in our northern counties, northern maryland here in the next couple of hours, and we're still dealing with rain in parts of southern maryland. look at all this still to our south. all this rain and snow is going to be wrapping around this very quickly energizing and very quickly strengthening nor'easter. that's going to be what we call bombing out, bombo genesis where it strengthens rapidly. that's happening

futurecast we go from 4 a.m. into 8, 9:00 this morning. what we see is -- rather 5, 6:00 this morning, we're still seeing that area of sleet, a wintery mix right over 95. fairfax county, gaithersburg, but to the north we're seeing a mixture of sleet and snow. i think the snow is going to push us way back in as we work our way closer to 6 and 7:00 this morning for places like frederick and leesburg. as we go from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m., a lot of the warmer air will be pushing further south. we'll start to see the snow, transitioning over to snow and we'll stay with snow showers for 10 to 12:00 today. in the afternoon the wind starts to pick up. a mix right now through 7 a.m. in the metro area, snow with a little sleet mixed in to the northwest. we see things transitioning back to a colder scenario with more snow as we work our way past 7 a.m. and past sunrise this morning. snow totals will end up being in the immediate d. c.

southern montgomery county, fairfax county, 3 to 7 inches of snow and sleet combined. when you get north of that, we see those totals that will be approaching, if not more than double-digits, especially higher elevations. not going to see much as you head into charles county. you've been dealing with too much sleet and freezing rain to end up with snow totals that will end up more than 1 to 3 inches. just to recap the timing. heavy snow in a mix this morning. this afternoon it will be breezy, windy at times. we'll have wind gusts 30 to 40 miles an hour. what that's going to do with the heavy wet snow stuck on trees that are in springtime mode, so they've already started blooming for some of them, that's going to weigh them down. can't rule out sporadic pour out ables. wind gusts might top 40 miles an hour in places in northern maryland. we're going to be dry as we get into most of tomorrow and thursday as well. we'll have some flurries tomorrow afternoon, but tomorrow morning and thursday morning temperatures will be very cold, so

melts during the day will be refreezing at night, and that will be a concern. let's go to the next three days, yellow weather alert today. you want to know when is this all going to melt. when can i get back to normal life. the next two days look very cold. after today we'll be stuck in the 30s. tomorrow's windy with flurries around. then we'll get into the 50s. finally thawing out past st. patrick's day. >> is that monday the first day of spring? >> it can't get here soon enough. >> i kept saying that all weekend. spring's only eight days away, seven days away. my sister was saying it's not just going to change over because it's spring. we have a new problem on the inner loop of the beltway by baltimore avenue. if you're taking marc or vre, marc's running on an r schedule so only trains with r next to it when you go on their list and look down. if they have an r they're going to be running but the marc commuter bus is canceled and the same r

running today. here's that accident on the inner loop of the beltway by baltimore avenue. small delays here, nothing too significant. we do have bad weather in that area. outer loop of the beltway by connecticut avenue we have another accident as well. we have slow traffic honestly from connecticut avenue all the way down to the springfield interchange on the inner loop of the beltway. 66 eastbound we have a new accident as well right when you pass by route 123. traffic just slow as you head through fairfax. here's that inner loop i was talking about. a half hour drive to make it from the springfield interchange up to the american legion bridge this morning. metro is going to open. 5:00 is their start time. however, trains coming slower. saturday schedule for today. mike and jan, trains will be coming every 12 minutes. thank you ellen. we want to check on prince george's county now. things are changing rapidly with the sleet mixing in.

it looks like where you are right now. >> reporter: we've gotten a little bit of everything, rain, sleet and snow. i'm sharing an umbrella. i convinced you to come over and said we can share an umbrella, i promise. you're gassing up, getting ready to go to work. how's the ride so far? >> it's all right. you just got to drive slow, below 45 and you'll be okay. >> and you have a 4 wheel truck you said and some of these cars. >> they be zooming past. they be going 65 miles per hour. >> it will be a slow ride into work. >> a slow ride for me. i'm going to make it safe. >> thank you, be safe. thanks for joining me. you can head back under the cover of my umbrella. go ahead, i'll keep that. listen, we're getting a lot of rain. it's cold rain. i'll say that's the sleet switched over to rain about an hour ago. take a look, jan and mike at these conditions here. branch avenue like tony was talking about is now down to

pavement, andit seems like cars are taking advantage of the pavement and going at speed. we do know there is a layer of slush and ice underneath that rain so certainly folks should drive with caution. and tony will be doing so as he heads to the department of interior for his hvac job. we love our cherry blossoms here in d. c., and we're so heartbroken that they could be broken. take a look, there's another blossom tree here with a layer, a coating of ice over these blossoms. that just indicates, listen, yesterday everything was flowering, daffodils and we had other flowers that were in bloom with the bright sun, and here we are no more than 24 hours later with a little bit of everything. so that's the latest here from branch avenue in marlow heights and we'll be back with another update and maybe talk to more folks in just a bit. >> i like that you talked about that. i was thinking about my daffodils in my yard and how they were blooming and i don't know if they're