Valentines. Happy friday. Im mike hydeck. Thanks for joining us. Monika is here with traffic. Good to see you. Welcome back. Howard will talk about the massive storm. We have closings to tell but first. It will be a happy valentines for a number of kids. Theyre staying home today and they have monday off for the federal highway. Lets start in maryland, prince georges, montgomery, calvert, frederick and Anne Arundel County schools are closed. In virginia a long list here. Alexandria, arlington, fairfax, fauquier, culpeper, frederick as in virginia, frederick city schools also in virginia, loudoun, manassas city schools, Prince William county, stafford and spotsylvania closed. D. C. Schools are closed but the Administrative Offices are on a twohour delay. The federal government is also delayed two hours. This is a partial list. You can go to our website wusa9. Com and we have some of the closings listed at the bottom of our screen. Some students are going to have monday, though, as a makeup day rather than a day off because theres just so many School Closings this year. There will be a lot of days. If we have any more of this weather. Winter is not over. Well take a break next week. Looks like a lot of mild air will be across much of the country so thats well deserved. Of course im sure that a lot of these schools will be contacting the state to see if they can get some exemptions or dispensations. July sounds like a nice time to start your summer vacation. They have to change their plans. Mother nature does that. Weather wise we know the storm that we got yesterday is now pounding areas across new york state and new england. Its pulling away, though. For us its left behind some windy conditions. Gusting to 30, 35 range overnight. Still a little gusty out there. Well call for breezy early. Going to abmilder day, upper 30s to low 40s for highs. 39 by 5 00. By this morning with temperatures close to freeding and still dropping a little bit, theres a concern well see wet surfaces do a flash freeze back to real icy. That can happen quickly, anything thats not treated. The winds are gusting near 30 in andrews. Baltore 35 mile an hour wind gust. Coastal areas are seeing 40 plus. Here in davis we have 40 mile an hour wind gusts right now. Temperatures, theyre still all over the place but some in the upper 30s like at national. La plata is down to 30. So weve got to watch for slick spots there. Thats why we have the yellow alert today, the early slick spots. 32 frederick and hagerstown. Many of these areas had so much snow yesterday, youre talking anywhere from 18 to 24 edge inches from northern eastern maryland all way back into areas of west virginia, northern then dough v. A. Valley, Northern Virginia shenandoah valley, Northern Virginia was really an unbelievable event. 6 to 8 inches at national and a foot in northwest d. C. Thats a hefty snowstorm for us. 39 this afternoon in frederick to 40 at andrews and 42 at national. Ill be back in a few and talk about a snow chance tonight into saturday. Right now monika with timesaver traffic. The volumes are going to be lighter than normal this morning with all the cancellations which is a good thing. But if you are headed out the door, i headed out really early this morning and had to scoot over when i saw snowplows along the right side of the road just getting ready to go out and treat again. So keep that in mind. You still may hit an icy patch, especially on the lesser traveled roadways and even the main roads. Vre if you take public transportation, today will be on an s schedule. Metro bus is suspended till 5 00 a. M. They should be starting pretty soon. Prince georges county, the bus is on a limited service today. A big accident with a dump truck that brought down live wires. Aviation boulevard is closed at terminal road on the north end of bw airport. I would suggest that you use elkridge landing road instead. Lets take a look at the road conditions. Heres what it looks like on the beltway in Prince Georges County county. Looking fine both loops of the feltway really between 95 and the wilson bridge. And a quick look live on the other side. No problems to report as you travel in springfield right now on the northbound side of i95. Vdot did a great job here. Back to you. Thanks a lot, monika. This was a big noreaster. Sucked us in the kisser and then we had some rain and melting and another round of snow last night. Now its all the residual issues we have to deal with. If you were shoveling your walk yesterday, theres a new coating of snow and ice on it. The same could be for some roads and intersections. Delia goncalves is live in the district where the cleanup is ongoing. Good morning, delia. Reporter good morning. The snow that folks have to clear, hopefully you did a lot of it yesterday because now it is packed in really heavy and crunchy like you said you encountered some of the snow on 16th street on your commute here. Covered in ice. Really hararararararararararara no audio ] reporter this is a snow emergency route. The idea of a snow emergency route banning parking here on the snow emergency routes is that it allows those plows to come through and really plow close from curb to curb. You can see that theyve done that here. However, guess what else they did . They plowed literally up to the entrance of this side street here, davis, the 3600 block of davis street. Its oneway and there really is only one lane in. You can hardly get in because there are about 3 inches of crunchy store just blocking the intraiway into the entryway into the side street. A plow hasnt made headway into the street. Just neighbors and car tracks have done a good job of clearing one little narrow path for cars to go down. We are going to travel around the city this morning taking a look at some of the trouble spots that crews still need to get to but the good news, we saw some plows. We know theyre still out here. So theyre getting the work done. Well see you on 16th street at 5 00. Back to you. Very good, delia. Thank you. Montgomery county officials have extended the area snow emergency after yesterday. In some places like gaithersburg and some of the other places north, some 15 plus inches of snow. Youre still waiting for a plow in your neighborhood. Maryland governor Martin Omalley declared that state of emergency well ahead of the storm but he says he wants to keep an eye on his progress before lifting the declaration. Nikki burdine is live in her home. Still a lot of coating out there. Good morning, nikki. Reporter good morning. We are in silver spring. Theyve been very kind to me here. Were specifically in the Montgomery Hills neighborhood at the corner of georgia and seminary. If you live in this area, very good news and bad news now. The bad news first. The bad news is that beautiful white, pristine fluffy snow we saw yesterday is long gone. The good news is that its been replaced with this stuff but its been moved away. So thats the good news. We are able to move around on those main roads here throughout silver spring. Georgia avenue pretty clear for the most part. You can see cars are moving just fine through this area. Seminary road was just fine. Colesville road. But then 16th street, georgia avenue, those are all really good. Nebraska avenue on our drive up here. But then you have the big problems. We actually couldnt drive on those roads because they were so bad. Of course the side roads, my photographer got out of the truck, went over to shoot some video so you could see what thats like. Lets take a look at some of that video. Some of the roads where youll see the biggest problems that we found at least. Here where we are off of seminary and georgia avenue, thats dale and that is a bit of a mess. It starts out just fine at the bottom of the hill but as you get towards the top of the hill right there, it is a slushy mess. There are areas where the snow has been pushed to the side and the roads are very narrow. Thats where youre going to have some issues. Montgomery county says 20 of roads were cleared last night. Of course they have resumed clearing those roads again today. Something else to be aware of, a lot of parking lots, for example, the gas station were standing in front of, the juston here, those park the exon here, those parking lots are a mess. These cars are going to have a hard time getting out. If you are planning on going to businesses today, be cautious as you pull into their parking lots because they are quite a mess. Were live in silver spring. Back to you guys. Thank you. We saw a plow just behind her so thats a good sign. D. C. Police say a body was found in the snow along Shannon Place in southeast yesterday just south of the anacostia freeway. Investigators have not released the persons name at this point but they do say they have no reason to suspect foul play. Three sudden deaths in Howard County yesterday. In two cases men were out shoveling when witnesses saw them collapse possibly suffering heart attacks. A third man also died of an apparent heart attack but its not clear if he was shoveling at the time. He was also found outside. A horse had to be rescued from a maryland barn yesterday. It became trapped under some heavy snow. Prince georges county firefighters had to set up a rigging system to try to left the horse up. They say it was exhausted after trying to free itself. A vet treated the horse at the scene. Sadly the horse later died. 4 41. We asked and you answered. Weve compiled all the weather pictures you facebooked and tweeted us over the last day or so. Coming up a look at some of our favorites. Plus, valentines day. Your plans will not come crashing down having to do with the weather. Howard is going to explain why in his first alert forecast coming up. We want you to be our next facebook fan of the day. Its easy. Go to our facebook fan page. Click on the fan of the day button. Fill out the form and make sure its friday. Thats the best news we can tell you about. Its still cold and were in a lull pattern maybe for Mother Nature with snow . Things are going to settle down after tomorrow for a while. Next week looks rather mild. Concern this morning, the reason were in a yellow alert, its borldzerline freezing borldzerline freezing borderline freezing and temperatures are still dropping. Flash freeze is a big concern. Thankfully the major roads are treated. The plows are out working doing their thing. The sidewalks, parking lots, your driveway or stoop, if it got wet and its wet now, it could be frozen in the next few minutes to a couple hours. Heres a look at our day plan other this friday morning. God, we love fridays so much. But they only come once a week. Thats the sad part. 40 degrees by 3 00 with a high around 41, 42. Well certainly get into nice melting later this morning into the afternoon. Clouds thicken up. Were back down to 34 by 9 00. Looking at a little bit of snow overnight into the first part of sar with another part of with another system. Picked up several more inches especially south and east of us. 4, 5 even in a few spots with this. This one had the thunder with it. Even had report of hail in the afternoon. Yes, not sleet but hail. A little bit of convection with the second piece here. All sorts of reports of thunder going through pennsylvania and up into new york with this system where its 32 up in new yo city. Philly is 35. 40 in charlottesville. So were doing some melting now but the colder air is coming in. We still have a few hours, about 7 00 or so for the sunrise. Look at these temps. 31, 31. Laurel 32. 34 alexandria. 33 fairfax and dulles. 29 dumfries. Thats the concern for me anyway that areas that were wet are now starting to get a little frozen. If youre not careful, it will cause big problems. Even walking on the sidewalk can be an issue for a lot of folks today. Clear skies. Looking good outside on our michael son weather camera. 38 degrees. Feels like 31 with a west, northwest wind at 9. Gusting to 17 which isnt nearly as bad as some of the 30plus gusts we had overnight. So theres the storm. Look at the cold front trailing almost toward eastern cuba and jamaica right now. A couple of systems here. This one in the midwest is going to follow that. Its this guy im looking out here coming from bismarck, in toward iowa. Doesnt look like much but theres the snow in iowa. This is tracking toward the southeast headed right toward the ohio valley and the mid atlantic. So were going to see this system here tonight into overnight into saturday morning. Look at the snow still cranking here up into maine and areas of canada, back into new york state. Quite a system we were dealing with yesterday. Showing you the futurecast on this. Well be watching the system coming in from the midwest. A couple of snow showers well north of us but no real problems here today. Tonight the clouds thicken up. Well take you to midnight. Might even start as a little bit of raindrops or sleet pellets but as it gets a little colder, here comes agent bit of snow overnight into tomorrow morning. Rain south. In the mountains, got a ski weekend planned, going to be some real good conditions here tomorrow. Even by midday still dealing with a couple of areas of light snow to the north or snow showers with this but this thing will clear out here in the mid to Late Afternoon leaving us with some sunshine. Could still be some Late Afternoon snow showers along the bay and then behind it finally well clear out. Sunday looks better but still chilly before a nice, nice warming trend next week. Today yellow alert for the early slick spots but 41 this afternoon. Tonight 31 degrees. So well be back dealing with the clouds increasing late tonight into the first part of saturday. Some snow showers. We may have to go yellow alert tomorrow. Some afternoon sun building in west to east. 35 on sunday, a cold, dry day. Then get ready for 40s on monday. Then after that i have 50s the rest of the sevenday but i also have a chance of a shower or two tuesday, wednesday, and thursday. Looks like the bigger systems stay west of us next week. Here comes monika with timesaver traffic. Have a real concern about the flash freeze potential the next few hours. Im concerned about that, too, because now is when were going to begin to see some volume out on the roadways. People trying to venture out, get to work. So on the inbound side of i66 for example, we already have an accident. Ill get to that in a minute. If you choose to use public transportation, vre is on an s schedule. Metro bus suspended till 5 00 a. M. And Prince Georges County the bus is on limited service right now. Up in nearby bwi airport, there was an accident where there are live wires across a dump truck, on top of it. Aviation boulevard is closed at terminal road. This is on the north end of bwi airport. You can use elkridge landing road instead. Lets go to our trafficland camera, this accident i was telling you about at the Fairfax County parkway. The rye lane is shut down here. Again as i said, you can already see some volume out on the major thoroughfares. People want to get an early start for those who do have to go to work. You want to especially be careful on the bridges, ramps and overpasses. This time on the beltway in college park where were looking good on the top stretch of the beltway as well. Back to you. Thanks a lot, monika. Vdot crews, boy had they had their hands full yesterday. Some areas got harder hit than others. Leesburg measured 17 inches. Middleburg 2 feet. Dull lest just under a dulles just under a foot. We didnt see much of this guy yesterday because he was driving around showing us conditions but now this morning we get to say good morning and see Hank Silverberg who is live in Loudoun County where people are still struggling to dig themselves out. Good morning, hank. Reporter good morning. The key words for this morning, ice, ice baby. We are in Loudoun County and you can see cars struggling here to get down the hill. This is one big ice path right here. This ice when we first got here was water. And now its a little bit of mush as the cars go through it. A couple of cars just came in a few minutes ago and as they tried to park, they skidded into their parking space. Thats what youre going to face as you come out this morning and try to go about ess maybe that morning cup of coffee on the way to work. The roads themselves are not that bad. The main roads. But in your neighborhood, youre liable to find a lot of this melting snow and its also difficult to walk. Im afraid to move too much while im standing here because im afraid ill end up falling over. Its just one solid sheet of ice. So be very careful if youre going out this morning. If you do have something to treat your sidewalks with, it would be a good idea. Reporting live in sterling, Hank Silverberg, wusa9. Thank you, hank. Stay safe out there. You shared some of your photos with us during the february noreaster coverage and were glad to share them on tv. That is cool. Morgan mcdaniel says they have been wishing for warmer temperatures. Were with you. Sharing, mel liss. This is a great shot. Oh, isnt that precious. Towson loves the sleds. Check this out. This makes for a perfect family photo op, all this snow, the big smiles there. Germantown, maryland is where this one came from. It will make a nice holiday card later this year. Clto 18,000 flights across the country canceled yesterday and close to 5,000 were delayed. Air travel was at a standstill and for the most part still is this morning. Mark albert spoke to some restless travelers at national airport. Reports say things probably wont be getting back to normal till the weekend. Reporter the metros three major airports got hammered. The snow shut all of them down at one point and canceled more than 900 flights in the area according to flight aware. More than a foot of snow clogged the runways at Dulles International diverting five Incoming International flights and closing the airport for about six hours until a little before 1 00 p. M. Bwi airport had nearly 250 canceled flights but the most cancellations came at Reagan National. Ladies and gentlemen, charlotte, North Carolina has given up for the day. Were once again suggesting that you go back home. Reporter a line of delayed travelers snaked through part of the terminal as cancellations grew here to nearly 400. Everything is canceled. Everything. This is the only shot i got. Reporter randy green drove from bwi to Reagan National to try to get to atlanta. Weve been here for about three hours so far. Reporter maxine and her steadily growing quilt hope to fly standby to orlando. I brought it with me because i knew i would have a little quality time. Reporter how are you getting through it . By talking and eating. Reporter this quartet of teenagers on a field trip from florida was still at Reagan National as the first flights began taking off around 5 00 p. M. The airport barely has enough land to stack all the snow. Even with runways open, friday will still not be back to normal. Flight aware says around 100 flights out of the d. C. Area have already been canceled. At Reagan National, mark albert, wusa9. You know the drill. If you havent signed up for those alerts, call first before heading to the airport. As of this morning dulles has 31 cancellations. Reagan national 73. It is 4 53 this friday morning on valentines day if youre just waking up. Another look at the question of the morning now. According to a survey, 29 of couples say they plan to do this on valentines day. Is it a, break up, b, nothing or c, a Weekend Getaway . Go to our facebook page. Give us your answer and tell us why. Well share some of your comments throughout morning. 4 56. Concern about smick slick spot about slick spots with temperatures still dropping. Sunshine today, upper 20s to low 30s by 9 00. Well stay mostly sunny day. A little breezy this morning. 38 lunch time. 38 fredricksburg. Some of the highs this afternoon are actually going to make the low 40s. Monika . Youre right, howard, i am definitely also very concerned about slick spots and more volume out on the roadways right now. We have an accident on the inbound or westbound side of route 50. This one just in before route 410 blocking two right lanes. Another one on the inbound side of i66 at the Fairfax County parkway. That was just cleared. Heres the beltway on the north side of town at New Hampshire avenue where traffic seems to be okay right now. Back to you guys. Here but heres a different view of the massive storm from space. Its left its mark on the south and east coast and grounded virtually all forms of travel, cut power to hundreds of thousands and paralyzed cities across the country and you can see the scope of that storm from this picture. Now we know why it happened the way it did. This is supposed to be the time of year for hearts and flowers and maybe some chocolate. But the huge winter storm you just saw is causing big problems for florists. Reporter in jeopardy the most profitable day of the year for floor is up and down the east florists up and down the east coast. This is actually the super bowl for florists. With the weather, it just adds another element that we have to deal with. Reporter 100 Million People have been hit by the storm. Some florists forced to close. Others pushing back orders till after the storm. Industry analysts say nearly 67 million flower orders are at risk. 80 of the business for valentines day is accomplished on the 13th and 14th. Reporter ftd, one of the Largest Online retailers of flowers has stopped taking additional orders in areas affected by the weather. A representative called delivery iffy. Now the new storm, the big scramble. Not too many florists will be able to deliver depending on the area so that means that well have todays deliveries and tomorrows to get out tomorrow. Reporter this flower shop in washington, d. C. Waited days for this delivery truck, driving from miami. You cant imagine. Its even worse in other places. Last night we had a delivery where the snow had covered all the area and we couldnt identify the streets. They just opened the bridges about five hours ago. He was able to get through just to get all our products. Reporter husbands are sweating it out across the east coast. The idea was i was trying to buy some roses for my wife and i had planned to surprise her with these hundred roses. I would assume they would have been open by now getting ready for the big day. Reporter it may be a shock to the heart but Mother Natures to blame. Were asking her to cooperate with us. We dont have any control over the weather. 100 roses. 100. You know how much a dozen costs . My goodness. I hope he got it. Hope she gets it. Its the thought that counts, right . Thats a lot of love. Thank you for watching us at 5 00 a. M. Hope you get the love and feel it, too. Were feeling the love from you. Its going to be a good day. Youre going to see some sunshine. Well get some melting out there. Im mike hydeck. Monika will have traffic. Howard will have weather. Basically every Public School in the viewing area is closed. Federal government offices are opening two hours late. Employees also have the option for unscheduled leave and unscheduled telework. The closings and delays are at the bottom of our screen right now. You can also find them on wusa9. Com. Flash freezing can happen like that on an untreated surface. With cold temperatures right now, weve got to be 32 or below. You remember that from basic science class. 33, 34 air temps. Surface temperatures can be different than the air temperature and black surface temperatures and clear skies tend to radiate heat well. It can help quickly to anything thats untreated. Ill show you the temperatures right now. The next two, three hours iua greatest concern. Once we get toward 8 00, 9 00, especially when the sun comes up at 7 00, well be in a lot better shape. Yellow alert day for the slick spots early. 30 degrees, even in town by 9 00 8 00 that is. Were dropping as we speak. 38 by noon with a high of 41. Then the clouds move in tonight in advance of a clipper system thats going to drop a little snow late tonight into the first part of saturday. Winds are coming out of the west and northwest. Theyre gusting over 25 still in martinsburg and leesburg. Got 17 here in town. Bwi35. Down to 31 at davis. Have gusts in the Higher Elevations of western virginia over 40 miles an hour. Temperatures and this is what i was just talking about. Close to and in some cases below freezing like in manassas and la plata down to 30 now. Frederick, gaithersburg 32. 33 andrews. It wont take much to get ice to form on what was maybe some wet roads or sidewalks and parking areas. 36 officially at leesburg. So again were getting to watch these temperatures. Temperatures are going to be critical for the next few hour