welcome back to "morning joe." want to update everyone. severe thunderstorm warning for the district of columbia including the white house. we are seeing thousands of lightning strikes. already heard reports of trees down and 60-mile-an-hour winds around silver springs and damascus. thunderstorm warning will continue for at least the next half hour. over the district of columbia. you can look at the radar itself. the worst in rockville and now the worst right over downtown d.c. up to silver springs. anyone traveling 495 loop up i-95 to the baltimore area give it another half an hour to an hour. we've heard reports of 2 to 3 inches in rain in 30 minutes and flash flooding in the area. a lot of the roads are impassible. the lightning counter in the middle screen there in the black with the white text. 5,000 lightning strikes in the d.c. and baltimore area in the last hour alone and will create a lot of power outages in the region, too, let alone the airport delays we will see that will probably last until the mid-morning but usually that shot of the white house is bright and sunny by now. this is a rare event for the