00:00It has been a long day of winter weather here in Charlotte, North Carolina.
00:04Beginning early this morning, a sleet began to fall and piled up here in downtown and the surrounding areas.
00:10Now, this does look like snow behind me, but this is actually all of the sleet that has piled up today.
00:16Early on, that sleet was a little bit slushy, even a little bit like snow at times.
00:21But now, it has all hardened off as a hard layer of ice.
00:26So, we are in round two just beginning now.
00:29This is a two-part storm.
00:31We had that first round this morning that dropped all that sleet, piled up all the sleet back behind me.
00:35And now, round two has just arrived right now, just before sunset.
00:40And this is going to be the more impactful round of winter weather.
00:43We are expecting to have freezing rain all night here in Charlotte.
00:47And my expectation is, as that ice builds up, we could be building up to a tenth of an inch per hour as the rain moves through this area.
00:55We are below freezing here at the surface.
00:58It will come down as rain, and it will freeze as it reaches the surface here in Charlotte, North Carolina and surrounding areas west of here and even further south down into South Carolina.
01:07I expect as the sunset falls, as it gets dark here, if the power starts going out, we likely will see the sky here in Charlotte begin to light up with what looks like transformers exploding.
01:17That green flash, the green glow that normally you will see during a hurricane.
01:21I see that a lot, chasing hurricanes.
01:23Well, this could potentially be a lot like chasing a hurricane, except for the strong winds.
01:28Lots of damage from trees coming down on power lines, the power lines coming down from the weight of that ice, and also making travel impossible.
01:36People have been able to get around a bit here in Charlotte throughout the day.
01:40But now that we are getting into dark, those temperatures are dropping, everything is beginning to freeze up harder, and that freezing rain is moving in.
01:48It is now time to get off the roads, get hunkered down, stay inside and stay warm, and hope that the power does not go out here in Charlotte and surrounding areas.
01:56Reporting for AccuWeather, I'm Aaron Jajak.
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