Night and were concerned about whats going to happen next and thats the possibility of a period of freezing rain late friday night, Early Saturday Morning well to the north and west of the metro area. Winter storm watch posted there. The metro area, we could see at times freezing rain early on saturday morning. We any it will be minimal with minimal impacts but something well keep a close eye on the entire storm watch 7 team son storm watch for you. John. John all right, doug, thanks very much. The warmest temperatures we experienced, that came before the sun even showed up this morning. So if you ventured outside, the wind was absolutely vicious when this cold weather blew in. Jeff with a look at how people are dealing with the cold. Just watching people cross that bridge today, jeff, they looked freezing. Jeff yeah. Not easy, jonathan. The windiest day weve seen in a long time and we started the story today with lets find some really windy spots. For this live broadcast lets lean into it and intent. This is the key bridge connecting arlington, virginia, and washington, d. C. Every time the gusts picks up you can feel a little bit. The guy holding the camera shaking around a little bit. We started here in rosalind, here in arlington, the tall buildings, the construction happening creating some serious wind tunnels. We had people, of course, on the job struggling to stay warm on the construction work. And all that new building construction, a lot of guys on the job. Men and women. We also hit the National Mall downtown. A lot of cold. A lot of wind. Very few people, as you might imagine. By reagan airport, you can see the white caps along the potomac river. Even trash cans tipped in. People taking it in stride. Layered up protecting themselves from the wind and trying to stay positive through it all. Y 25 years. Jeff you know how to dress right . Yeah. Its started. I think i may have gone a little bit further than i should vfment thanks to starbucks and some warm soup for lunch, thats kind of how i got through it. Jeff starbucks, warm soup, whatever it takes. How you doing, sir . Hanging in there . Yeah, hes got a smile on his face. Ok. Some people take it in stride. Thats what it takes on a day like this. Its been windy but trying to stay warm anyway we can. People we talked to, virginia dominion power not too many outages. Coming up at 5 00, well speak with some people on why they actually like this weather and actually show you some spots where the wind kicked up some interesting images. Until then, live on the key bridge, jeff, abc , news. All right, jeff. You hang in there too. Thats tough work for you and brian. Thank you so much. Then, there are choice. Our Team Coverage is live outside the Uptown Theater in d. C. We are talking about people waiting for the newest star wars movie opening tonight. Thats right. We are talking about this movie a star re, rogue one wars movie. It airs here at 7 00. That brings us to our instapoll question. Would you sleep outside to see this movie . Now, the trailer speaks for itself. You have to say wow. The special effects. This is supposed to be a equel between episodes iii and iv. I have to show you this makeshift bungalow. The question is, would you sleep outside to watch the movie . The guys who are in this bungalow early this morning and throughout the day would answer yes. Right now theyre actually warming up. Well toss it to them at but i want to ask these guys who just showed up about, what, an hour or so ago . About a halfhour ago. Q would you sleep outside in the cold since tuesday to watch this movie . Probably about one night would be my limit. Q ok. Like so overnight . Overnight. Im not as intense as these guys, though. I admire them. Q but you are really happy that this movie is coming out . Yeah. Q all right. What are you expecting . More of a return to the old movies that i really grew up on. I liked the new one last year but this is back in the time period that we know. Q got you. Last question before i let you go. How many layers do you have on, because its freezing out here . I think about five. Q about five. Thats the thing. Gloves on. I might have to borrow them because i forgot mine at home. Its freezing cold out here. When you come back at 5 00, i am going to get one of the guys looks like hes sleeping in there. Stick around for that. Well show you how these guys have been living. Reporting live from cleveland park, im q mccray. Back to you guys in the studio. Alison all right, q. Thank you. Diehard fans. Alison thats one way to put it. Go to wjla. Com and the facebook and twitter feeds and download the weather app. Jonathan lindsey is at the live desk of the verdict in the dillon ruff case. The jury did not take very long to convict the 22yearold who killed nine black Church Parishioners in South Carolina could now face the death penalty. Jurors will decide his face during the sentencing phase. Thats set to begin in the next few weeks. Remember his confession to the f. B. I. Is on camera. The jury saw that. He, however, did not take the his Defense Attorneys did not call any witnesses, but we could hear from him during the sentencing phase. Right now he is planning to represent himself for that. We will have to see. Back to you, jonathan all right, lindsey. Thanks. You can sign up for breaking news text alerts doing it at our website wjla. Com. Alison. Alison legendary sideline reporter and nba announcer craig sager has passed away. The colorful reporter in both personalities and wardrobe had been battling leukemia for a number of years. The president of turner called him a true inspiration to us all. He was 65. Covering metro now and two big stories for the rail system today. Six people were fired after a derailment at the East Falls Church station last summer. And the board also voted to close the entire system earlier. Stephen tschida is live at the details. Stephen. Stephen michelle, some metro commuters, passengers, especially here in the suburbs not too thrilled about this reduction in hours as of july 1 and for at least the next two years, these turnstiles will be closing earlier. Continued Maintenance Work requires more hours so as of july 1, metro will designate more time to repair work and less time to riders. I guess we are supposed to take cabs now. Stephen monday through thursday 5 00 a. M. To 11 30. Friday 5 00 to 1 00 a. M. Saturday, 7 00 a. M. To 1 00 a. M. Sunday, 8 00 a. M. To 11 00 p. M. The definition of compromise is something that makes no one happy and maybe thats kind of where we are. Stephen other news today, metro fired six employees, four inspectors and two supervisors over the derailment at East Falls Church metro from detore ating they false deteriorating tracks. They falsified reports. Thats about half of all metros inspectors. Its reprehensible that any supervisor, mid level manager would tolerate or encourage this behavior or seek to retaliate against those who objected. Stephen now, no charges have been filed at this point, but prosecutors do have this report and they are reviewing it. Now, coming up next hour, we are going to be telling you about another safety issue on metro just this week where passengers were exposed to that third rail, that highly charged third rail. Reporting live, stephen tschida, abc 7 news. Stephen, thank you. Sign up for metro news. Text to 43817. Jonathan jack johnson, today hes out of prison and at a residential reentry in frederick. You may recall he was sentenced to federal prison in 2011 on corruption charges. Hes due to be released in june. Alison new information about the man accused of bringing guns into comet pingpong. Ey indicted edgar welsh with charges. The North Carolina man said the restaurants involvement with a child sex ring brought him to that d. C. Pizza place. Well, now facebook, we learned, is taking measures to curb the spread of such stories on the social network. The company says it will make people to report them as fake and will have Fact Checkers to sort out through whats real and whats not. Coming up on abc 7 news at 4 00, investigators say they have new evidence that could explain why egypt air flight 804 crashed between paris and cairo. Jonathan plus, after the flood, the big setback for its feet. Alison and remember when we ad that commute known as jonathan there is new information on egypt aircraft flight 804. A forensic report now states traces of explosive material were found on the remains of some of th 66 people were killed when that plane crashed in the Mediterranean Sea back in may while it was on its way from paris to cairo. The recorder reported there was a fire onboard before the aircraft crashed. Alison nearly five months after the flooding, the rebuilding process is well under way. But someone just dealt a major blow to a bar owner working hard to reopen, and as shelly installing a camera is important. 11 days before christmas. Timing couldnt be worse. At the phoenix empour emporium. They are busy not with holiday preparation but rebuilding. Almost 4 1 2 months. It puts a halt on things. Their progress at the moment stalled. Weve been dealing with the police all day. He fo in overnight taking thousands of dollars worth of specialty tools. I suspect between 5,000 and 6,000. Carpenter john beck was building bar. I cant believe people would stoop to that level to see what theyve been through and further delay it. I cant fathom it. Several television sets. A computer and some checks stolen from my office. They even stole the coax out of the fridge. You the cokes out of the fridge. The worst part, one, it happening, two, the time of year. I just dont think it could get any worse. Were trying to get open the day after christmas. A major setback to those plans but the thieves did not steal their determination. Well figure it out. The phoenix, Everybody Loves this place and we are trying to get it done and get mark back up and running for him and his staff. Alison hopefully those folks return those goods and find whos situation with Jamie Sullivan with the details. Hi. Were starting with a water main break. Weve seen quite a few of these throughout the day today and this is something that will continue to happen. 16th street between somerset and sheridan. This is with the water main break. Now, we dont have problems from d. C. To silver springs. But 14 Miles Per Hour is your average heading into the city. Now, just a heads up, we do have some slowing here inbound but we have the slowing heading outbound which is going to be typical for us. Bottom side of the beltway, a reminder we do have that debut concert tonight with boyes 2 men at m. G. M. We will see a lot of bozyii men at m. G. M. We will see a lot of traffic. Volume on the inner loop as well as the outer loop and some spots even a little bit of sun glare out there. That stretch right there on the inner loop between 6 American Legion bridge will take you about an hour. So, again, definitely slow. Not as many crashes to worry about. But watch for those water main breaks. That is a look at traffic. Back to you. Jonathan that pales into comparison. That is never fun, ice skating in your car. They just dont recommend it. This is the storm watch. This is carmageddon we are telling about. The cars were piling up in portland, oregon. Yep. They had one to three inches of snow. Nd the icy conditions were enough for the drivers to come together and get to know each other and it stranded a group of kids on the school bus. Think about the story they could tell and the excuse for not getting their home work done. My feet were frozen by the second hour, and we were all terrified we were our brakes were going to fail and go down the hill or a car would run into us. Jon in an they were doing that for two or three hours. Lu bus were injured. Some other buses were involved in some crashes. School districts across the region cancelled classes today. Probably a smart move. Alison well, there were snow in buffalo. It was a small band of lakeeffect snow that moved through the area pretty fast. Buffalo, theyre used to it. I would say its standard this time of the year. Doug its a lot of snow. Alison we had a carmageddon episode here that was equally as awful as the video we just saw there. Doug said, hardly any snow but it was horrible. Right during rush hour. Michelle i remember that. Doug i tried to get home. It took to go to our studios to get to the 14th street bridge was an hour and 45 minutes. Jonathan thats when you park and get some coffee. Doug i got off the bridge and came back. Listen, our big concern tonight is cold. It will be colder and then there is a possibility of a brief wintry issue in the morning saturday. But more so towards the pennsylvania border. Lets cover that for you. These are current numbers. In leesburg its 17 but feels like four degrees. It feels a little below zero. In fact, all these numbers are live so if the wind changes or temperature changes it will feel it. Frederick, two blow and 10. 19 now on the campus of childrens hospital. The wind chill of three above. And both sets of values, temperatures and wind chills will continue to drop tonight. It wont be windy. Well call it breezy. The winds five to 10 and some gusts overnight 20 Miles Per Hour. Tonight will be colder than last night and tomorrow not quite as cold. Its coming out of the process of the cold arctic air entrenched, when some rain moves into the west late friday night, saturday morning, that sets the stage for freezing rain. At the bus stop in the morning, 18 degrees pickup time. 26 29 degrees at dismissal. Needless to say, cold morning ahead. We have a winter storm watch posted late tomorrow night Early Saturday Morning from Harford County line, parts of West Virginia, pennsylvania and eastern West Virginia as well for a period of freezing rain that could impact driving and could start to accumulate on tree branches, powerlines. In the metro area we think we will see a little mix of rain and freezing rain. Changing rain by 10 00 a. M. As temperatures go above freezing, drier and milder air. We will be in the low to mid 50s saturday afternoon and close to 60 sunday. The clouds continue to move in. By early in the morning, this model depicts a little freezing rain or sleet. Some rain and freezing rain in the mountains. A lot of it stays to the north but certainly 7 30 or so you see how its depicted here. A little wintry mess before temperatures turn over to plain rain. We will have another chance of rain as we get through the day sunday. Temperatures close to 60 sunday but then dropping very, very quickly late sunday afternoon. Look at that. We go from 60 to sunday afternoon to 27 sunday night. Chilly weather monday and tuesday. Warming up by wednesday. Looking ahead to Christmas Eve and christmas day, upper 40s. Michelle. Michelle all right, doug. Thank you. Coming up at 4 00 he instantly became the big brother that i never had. Michelle what brought perfect strangers together to feel more like family . Just checking my free credit score at credit karma. What the . Youre welcome. I just helped you dodge a bullet. But i was just checking my. Shhhhh. Dont you know that checking your credit score lowers it. Just be cool. Actually, checking your credit score with credit karma doesnt affect it at all. Are you sure . Positive. Huh, so i guess i could just check my credit score then. Oh check out credit karma today. Credit karma. Give yourself some credit. Sorry about that. A consumer alert about mailing your holiday gifts. The u. S. Postal service says if you want your packages guaranteed to arrive by christmas day, you have to get them out by today. Thats if you plan on using standard ground shipping. Of course, you can always pay more for expedited shipping later on. Alison. Alison all right, michelle. So we want everybody to take a look at what you, our viewers, helped us do this year with toys for tots. This is just a sampling of all of the toys weve collected here in our lobby. Donated toys for tots by viewers like you. Were so excited today is the big day to wrap things up, so to speak, and head them out to other kids so they can enjoy them. And Master Sergeant david pazana from the marine corps is here today. Thanks for the efforts here. Tell us where the toys are going now . These ones will go to our warehouse where they will be sorted and already tomorrow and saturday they will be given out to the local d. C. Kids. Alison this is something obviously you guys have been doing for many, many years. It seems like this year in the d. C. Area has been a huge success. Honestly, everybody thats helped out, has been amazing. We have Companies Like pocket ship it to help us out. We have our local first responders, the Police Department, fire department, everybody and you guys. You have been covering us like crazy everywhere weve been. Thats definitely gotten us out there which catches peoples eye and say, i think i want to do that. Its been amazing. Alison i know its probably been for you one of the highlights of the year. I bet you guys really enjoy this. Its always easy to make a kid smile. Yeah, its a very good moment, you know, to help out a kid. Anybody. Alison we appreciate the marine corps and toys for tots and by the way, you mentioned the smiles out there that we will be seeing. Saturday is when the marines will start delivering these toys that weve collected. We did a big drive there at National Harbor and hopefully you had a chance to come out and enjoy. We will be there when those deliveries will happen. If you want to see those smiles firsthand, tune in to abc 7 and wjla. Com and youll get a chance to see it there. All right. Thanks, again, to everyone who helped. Now we hope you stay with us. Coming up at abc 7 news at 5 00, a consumer alert for those of you who own one of those billionplus yahoo accounts that have been compromised. The action yahoo wants you to take, tonight at 5 00. Jonathan and still ahead at 4 00, calls for inside the harrowing messages coming out of aleppo, syria. And laurel on a 22degree day and this has nothing to do with the polar plunge. Jonathan they say a picture has a thousand words. The wind was whipping up and whats whipping that flag that was so cold. Doug its a combination. If temperatures are in the 60s thats fine.