D.C. Area Sees Mostly Rain, While Blizzard Targets Northeast

It was a wet and slightly slushy morning around the D.C. area this morning, as a winter weather advisory was in effect until about 10 a.m. As the day progresses, D.C. and the close-in suburbs will see mostly rain, but not far away in the Northeast, 50 million people are in the path of a storm that is being described as potentially historic.

Some school districts, including Prince William, Loudoun and Frederick counties in Virginia and Howard County in Maryland, operated on a two-hour delay this morning. A full list of school and other official closings and delays is available from our partner, NBC Washington. 

In the Northeast and New England, they are bracing for a much more serious weather event from this storm; blizzard conditions are expected to hit much of the region by this afternoon, and up to two feet of snow is possible. Amtrak says Acela Express and the Northeast Regional services will be the ones impacted between New York and Boston.

In regional airports, cancellations are the order of the day for anybody traveling to or from cities in the path of the storm. Airline officials are advising people to call or check flight statuses online ahead of time to see if their flights have been cancelled.

"I was going home, and as soon as I got here to check in, my flight was canceled," said Jane Murray, sitting in Reagan National Airport. "Now I'm going to go back to work, because I have nothing else to do."

It's going to be a tough weekend for anyone traveling to and from the area affected by the weather, because once those airport runways get cleared and the planes get de-iced, crews have to be found and all the passengers like Jane Murray have to be accommodated.

Travel officials aren't the only ones preparing ahead; utility companies are also bracing for the blizzard. Dominion Power has sent 60 of their utility crewmembers to New Jersey to help the state deal with potential power failures caused by the storm. Pepco has also sent crews to New Jersey and throughout parts of the Northeast.

"We've released about 150 contractor crews, including some tree crews that are working on our systems, says Myro Aoppel with Pepco. "They will assist crews from northern New Jersey to southern New England."

The regional communications director for Pepco says they are not sending any internal crews, so that they can be on hand for any local power losses. However, he doesn't anticipate any outages in the D.C. area due to the storm.