Barrage of rain, snow and sleet moves into Washington area 26JAN11

SNOW!!!!!! Yes we are getting real snow here for the first time this Winter!!!! We have about 4 inches on the ground right now, and it is heavy, wet snow. And we had thunder sleet and thunder snow! EVERYTHING is closing, and the roads are a disaster, traffic is jammed, lots of accidents, mostly because people are driving stupid, driving too fast for conditions.....It's time like this I thank God I only live 2 miles from work and I drive a JEEP!!! This from the Washington Post....
By Ashley Halsey III
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 26, 2011; 4:52 PM

Weather radar shows every color of the winter rainbow as bands of rain, sleet and snow close in on the Washington region Wednesday afternoon, sending almost everyone - including the federal government - scampering home early in the face of warnings of up to 10 inches of snow.
What could be a relative trifle compared to last year's blizzards loomed ugly in the middle of this comparatively tranquil winter. And the process of shutting down, hurrying people home and preparing to keep roads open has consumed much of the day.
Quitting time for federal workers came two hours early, but midday traffic suggested some were departing even earlier, and with most of the region's schools already closed, some people never made it to work at all.
Forecasters said the rain and sleet was ending, and residents in western suburbs were reporting near-white-out conditions. Traffic on all of the major commuting routes out of Washington were clogged with drivers tackling the slippery ride home.
"Thundersnow is possible with rates in excess of one to two inches per hour," said Jason Samenow of the Capital Weather Gang.
With snow taking hold on highways in Northern Virginia, the Virginia Department of Transportation reported slow going, further hindered by a number of accidents.
"It's incredibly nasty," said VDOT spokesman Joan Morris. "It's going to be a long, painful rush hour. The rain overnight washed away a lot of the pre-treating we'd done, so motorists have to realize that we're stuck in the same traffic they are."
With some snow a certainty - though amounts seemed likely to differ from one place to the next - school and transportation officials looked toward Thursday, when closings and schedule changes seemed inevitable.
Airports officials urged passengers to check the status of their flights with the airlines before heading out Wednesday night or Thursday morning. The Maryland Transit Authority gave similar advice to check schedules before venturing out for trains or buses.
Highway crews prepared to shift into snow mode after several days of pre-treating the major roadways, and in Maryland, where things got snowy sooner than expected, reinforcements already had been thrown into action.
With several inches of snow expected to fall overnight, and icy patches on some residential streets already turning them into no-go zones for school buses, those school systems that hadn't already announced shutdowns for Thursday were about to. Officials in Arlington, Calvert and Charles counties and Alexandria dismissed classes early.
D.C. schools canceled all evening events and urged parents to pick up children at the regular dismissal time instead of using after-care programs. However, officials said that after-care staff would still be available to supervise kids.
The two rail lines that carry commuters to the deep suburbs - the Maryland Transit Administration and Virginia Railway Express - were fiddling with schedules. MTA canceled the 4:55 p.m. Brunswick Line .
Train 327, departing Union Station at 3:45 p.m. on the Manassas Line, will have eight cars.
MTA said that contracted commuter buses - mostly those operated by Dillon's Bus Service - would maintain normal schedules this afternoon, but additional buses would be on standby on the big routes as the federal shutdown causes an early exodus.
"It's the afternoon rush hour that could be the problem," said Joan Morris, spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Transportation. "We're going to ramp up to 2,000 trucks [in Northern Virginia] by 3 p.m. That's the most we've had out there this year."
The Maryland Highway Administration had a crew of 1,100 workers rolling along its roadways.
"Crews out treating roadways are reporting motorists driving too fast for conditions in some cases, so please remember to go slow in ice and snow," said State Highway Administrator Neil J. Pedersen.
The mere threat of ice and snow has played havoc with intercity travel. Amtrak officials were assessing their operational needs to keep trains running, but bus companies, such as Boltbus, Greyhound and Megabus, announced widespread cancellations for Wednesday and Thursday.
Dulles International, Baltimore-Washington International Marshall and Reagan National airports were all operating Wednesday, but airlines had begun to cancel flights and implement policies allowing passengers to rebook without penalties.
Domestic flights leaving after 4 p.m. could be at risk of cancellation or delays, said Rob Yingling, spokesman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which operates Dulles and National, because many of those flights are depending on arriving aircraft. International flights leaving in the afternoon and evening appear to be on schedule, Yingling said.
Snow teams were on standby to keep the runways at Dulles and National clear.
At BWI, crews have been treating and clearing the runways and planned to stay overnight to handle the incoming snow, BWI spokeswoman Lynda Warehime said.
Life on the 'fault line'
If getting to work was a sloppy, slippery prospect that crinkled more than a few fenders and took much longer than normal, getting home promised to be even less fun. The conspiracy of stuff that so often makes for winter misery is in full effect today: Road surfaces are cold enough to freeze what lands on contact; what's landing isn't fluffy white snow that's easily swept away; and the air is just warm enough to keep changing up the mix until nightfall ushers in the true cold.
This is the reoccurring fate of life on what weather forecasters call the "fault line," that invisible border between the rain that typically falls on more southern states and the snow that's more normal in the northern states. Here, the two weather cultures meet, and today is a perfect example of why that often is less than Currier-and-Ives pretty.
Computer models show the likelihood of intense snow from mid-afternoon through mid-evening, probably beginning briefly as rain. Regional radar shows an upper-level disturbance that will cause the tumult heading up from the southwest. It should arrive between by 4 p.m. from southwest to northeast.
As the storm moves north into Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and New England, it will deliver significantly more snow, just the latest in several big snowstorms that have made this winter in those areas reminiscent of the series of blizzards that the Washington region experienced last winter.

Extra crews on standby

As the storm approached, local utilities said that they had added more contract crews and staff to help grapple with the snow expected to fall through the night.
Pepco spokesman Clay Anderson said the power company had added additional crews at service center locations in Rockville and Forestville that will be on extended shifts as long as the storm lasts. Customer service staff plan to work through the night, he said said.
"We will continue to monitor the weather forecast and prepare for possible outages," he said, although no issues had arisen by midday. "We're keeping crews on standby and we'll be patrolling the area as safety allows."
Dominion Virginia spokeswoman Le-Ha Anderson said that the company had already deployed extra crews near Warrenton and Loudoun County, where the snow is expected to be the heaviest. With meteorologists expecting a sticky, wet snow, she said, the company was bracing for possible problems with downed trees and power lines.
"We expect a very heavy, wet snow that could cause some operational problems, particularly in the western region," she said.
Staff writers Jennifer Buske, Kafia A. Hosh, Annie Gowen and Katherine Shaver contributed to this report.