ABC11 Eyewitness News - Eyewitness News at 11pm - February 1, 2026

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

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Right now, live coverage from your local news leader, preparing you for tomorrow starting tonight and your first alert forecast. Here's what's happening where you live. This is ABC 11 eyewitness news. North Carolina looks more like someplace up north tonight after yesterday's stormed on inches and inches of snow all across the state. Here's a live look as we are driving in downtown Raleigh on Martin Street. Tonight, many major roads and highways have been cleared, but others are still kind of. covered in snow and ice and with temperatures dipping into the teens tonight, there's renewed concern right now about black ice. Hi everyone, thanks for joining us here for the news at 11. I'm Steve Danes. And I'm Lauren Johnson. We're continuing our first alert day coverage is the attention now shifts to the extreme cold and the possible refreezing that could happen before the morning commute tomorrow.

We have live team coverage for you tonight showing you the current road conditions and talking about school closures and Duke energies request for us to conserve energy because of the strain on the power grid. But let's begin with meteorologist Cruz Medina. Joining us in the First Alert Forecast Center. Cruise, a winter weather advisory is in effect right now. That is correct. And today we saw temperatures get above freezing. So that was a little bit of melting. And you might have noticed that there's some moisture on sidewalks and streets.

Well, whatever spots look wet tonight, those are actually going to be icy spots in the morning. So I was able to verify that by looking in our parking lot. Any of the snow that we cleared from the salts that was put down, kind of helped to melt that today, has now frozen. into a sheet of ice. So expect hazardous travel across the region tomorrow morning. We have that winter weather advisory in effect until 10 a.m.

And obviously some impacts can linger beyond that, especially in shaded areas. Now tipters at this time are well below freezing already. We're down in the low to mid 20. So some of the coolest spots, Oxford at 21 degrees is 23 in Burlington, 25 in Raleigh and 21 in Clinton. Those tipters continue to drop tonight.

So we're going all the way down into the teens. It is going to be frigid when you wake up tomorrow. but obviously aside from just it being cold, you'll have to watch out for those icy spots if you're someone who has a morning commute early tomorrow. So bundle up, heading out the door, be cautious on your morning commute. We will see the tipters jump above freezing for the afternoon.

Tipters will rise into the middle to upper 30s across the region. And we've got a good amount of sunshine tomorrow too. So the fact that tipters will be above freezing and of course we'll have those sunny skies around as well, that should help to get us some melting tomorrow. But the thing is tomorrow night is all going to be cold so expect more refreezing problems as we go throughout the week. Now high temperatures will be the warmest in areas like the triangle down in the sand hills

and north of the triangle those spots reaching about 38 and Roxborough and Fayetteville 39 the high and Raleigh we've got some 40s in the forecast and I know that's not necessarily warm but it's warmer than what we've been seeing over the past seven days and that should help to speed up this melting process but once again several more nights of refreezing possible this week we'll talk about some release in your seven-day forecast coming up in minutes. Back to you. All right, Cruz, thank you. Many of us who are Duke Energy customers received a text message today, asking you to conserve power tomorrow morning as the utility company deals with increased demand on

the grid. Yeah, there is a real strain on the power grid right now, as the temperatures remain 10 to 20 degrees below average, causing a lot of us to crank up the heap. DeWan Hogarth joins us live now in Durham with some tips on how we can cut down on that energy use and help out Duke Energy prevent problems tomorrow morning. Doan? Yes, Stephen, Duke Energy putting out that call to customers just across the area, including those here behind me in this Durham neighborhood, to specifically conserve their energy between the hours of 4 a.m. and 10 a.m. Monday. We're just hours away from when Duke Energy is expecting customers to cut back

and conserve power between the hours of 4 and 10 a.m. Monday. At 4 a.m. I'll still be asleep, hopefully. We caught up with Mike Roebuck this evening already planning to heed to take that warning. I was pondering that, but we'll do our best to turn off all extra lights and, you know, make sure that only the heater's running. Duke Energy sending this email out to customers today, noting extremely cold temperatures ranging between 10 to 20 degrees below normal are leaning to unusually high demand, which is limiting power supplies. We've actually done a lot of steps on our end to make sure more available power is online and serving our customers. Duke Energy spokesperson Jeff Brooks says it's essential that customers do their part to conserve energy. That's just a way that we can help share energy with all of our customers so that we can keep our system reliable.

It also will help customers reduce their energy costs during a time when demand is going to be very high. Here are just a few of the tips Duke provided that residents can take in an effort to protect the utility's power grid, such as using electric space heaters when temperatures rise, avoid using your electric washer and dryer or dishwasher, and even opening blinds or curtains during daylight hours. You know, we'll definitely can set like around 68 and bundle up. little thing can help. And really what we're trying to do is just make sure that we can keep the grid reliable and avoid any other steps we may have to take by using these conservation measures. The worst case scenario should demand remain high in resources be strained. Brooks says

rolling temporary outages could take place to help protect the grid. That would not be good. It would make going to work a lot harder. And Jeff Brooks tells me the first and last time that Duke Energy had to have one of those temporary rolling outages was actually at the very end of December 2020 when a terrible winter storm blanket of the area. Jeff also tells me that he doesn't expect that to be the case this time around. We're live in Durham tonight. Duane Hogarth, I-11. I wouldn't this news. Yeah, 4 a.m. to 10 a.m. That's the time of concern, as you mentioned, DeWan. So if we all sleep in, no problems for Duke Energy in the morning. Thank you. It's been in all hands-on-deck weekend for NC DOT. As crews have been working around the clock

to plow salt, sand the roads, keeping us all safe. You can see our DOT camera here, Edwards Mill Road, Lenovo and there's look right there in the middle a little slick spot right there that's right there the black ice and that is the big concern going into the morning hours black ice across the area slushy spots are refreezing right now as a matter of fact jemise price on the road tonight in raleigh jemis some people had no choice but to go out driving today depending on where they were going they may have had very different conditions the steve yeah the conditions are different depending on exactly where you are now i've been out all day from the sand hills to the triangle on major interstate's and 40 and those roads, the interstates, those areas clear, but it's the secondary roads where we are right now here in this neighborhood in downtown Raleigh off of Martin Street. So you can see how these roads look right now. They are covered in snow and ice. And that is a major concern. And the reason why those classes were canceled or in person classes were canceled for several students here. So the NCDOT says in some places it could be days before secondary roads are clear.

So getting out of your neighborhood may be the biggest challenge. Now, we spoke with drivers tonight who ventured out on the road, and they described those driving conditions to us. Take a listen. I got stuck right at the incline up there, couldn't move the truck, had to go back into reverse, and traffic being traffic, I got three people behind me all waiting. And I'm like, please just go around.

like I have to back up to get traction so that I can go again to come again, come take that turn into my apartment complex. So just try and be kind to people, try to be nice and, you know, increase following distance for the love of God. All right. Now the concerns aren't over. We are now preparing for refreezing and the potential of a black ice. And again, certainly a major concern now. If you have to get out to make sure that you take your time and, increase your following distance. Lauren and Steve. Janice logging a lot of miles for us today, right? She's been all over the place. Yeah, and we see those icy conditions. We all need to be aware of that tonight and into the morning. Be careful out there,

Jimmy's, thank you. All right, this is the news. Kids across the triangle we're hoping for. Both Wake and Durham Public Schools closing tomorrow because of the weather. A lot of families are excited to enjoy the snow for another day. Tom George is joining us live at West Kerry Middle School. Tom. Parents often wonder, how do school leaders make this call? You found out a little bit about that today, right? Yeah, that's right. It boils down to being better safe than sorry as we've been driving around Wake County. Some of the roads are fine, but some of those side streets can be a little dice here. This is actually the entryway to the school. So if a main road were to look something like this in Wake County, that could cause a problem, especially with, as we've been mentioning, those refreezes heading into the morning. So better safe than sorry and the kids enjoying an extra day out in the snow. After a busy day sledding, students getting ready for another packed schedule tomorrow. Sleep all day, so Pop-Tarts and playing the snow.

It's playing the snow. Kids excited to enjoy the full day without any remote learning. No, I had to do work at home. It was not fun at all. Some parents tell us, although the days off require adjusting the schedule, if the kids have the day off, they're glad it's a full day off instead of remote. I think it's just if it's snow day, just be all in, you know, and not do half and half. I think that the kids appreciate that and, you know, sometimes inconvenient, but it's good for the family, you know, to have that good time together.

While some roads are back to normal, other pockets are still making it unsafe. Take this bus drop-off lane right near Moore Square Magnet Middle School, still covered in snow as cars slip and slide. In Durham, they're also not taking any chances, especially with bone-chilling temps early in the morning and a precarious situation for buses. Sometimes our bus routes and our bus drivers have to be at the bus lots as early as 5, 6 o'clock. And so the timing around the temperature, whether it's below freezing, above freezing, that goes into the decision-making process as well.

So for now, school can wait. Tomorrow, it's a lesson in childhood memories. Stay cozy, hot chocolate, and make the best of it. There you go. Stay cozy, hot chocolate, make the best of it. Good advice there. And again, definitely important to kind of stay inside, enjoy the snow, get out there. But the roads can be pretty dicey, especially in the morning. So take it slow. Don't take any chances. Again, Wake County, Durham Public Schools, Among several others in the district, we have the full list for you at ABC11.com. Reporting live and Carrie.

Tom George, ABC11, I would have snooze. Yeah, we kept hearing from the first short weather team. The ice came down last week, the snow on top of it, so not surprising to see still so much precipitation on the roadways. Tom George, thank you. The winter weather continues impacting flights all across the country, including here at the RDU Airport. Airlines canceled 79 flights today, and there have been more than 100 delays. If you have travel plans, make sure you check your flight status before heading to the airport. And major disruptions continue at the Charlotte.

airport. According to Flight Aware, they've had more than 850 flight cancellations today and more than 300 delays at that major American Airlines hub. Still to come tonight, it's the snow dance that's melting hearts. The romantic moment caught on camera last night in Raleigh that's now going viral online. And former Tar Heel football star Drake May is officially on his way to Super Bowl 60. We'll show you his message to the Patriots fans who gathered out there in the freezing cold this morning to send him off. And speaking to freezing cold, Cruz is tracking those. temperatures outside tonight. What did you call it earlier? North Carolina. North Carolina is very on brand for us right now. We're already down in the 20s and it's going to keep getting

colder tonight all the way down into the teen. So bundle up, buttercup. We're in for our cold stretch this week. We'll talk about some melting of the snow coming up in your seven-day forecast. With MX Platinum, almost every purchase made with your card can be covered with points, including new tastes, new fits, and virtually everything is. in between. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. I was guilty of multiple skin care crimes. Two counts of sleeping and makeup. One count of using disposable wipes. I knew my routine had to change. So I switched to Garnier-Missler water. It gently cleanses, perfectly removes makeup, and provides 24-hour hydration.

Clear away the evidence with the number one Missler Water worldwide by Garnier. New here at 11, we have a romantic moment we want to show you. In the snow, it was caught on camera in Raleigh. And the moment was thought to be a proposal, captured so much attention and so many hearts on social media tonight. I talked to the woman who captured this tender moment, and we tracked down the couple. We've all heard the phrase learned to dance in the rain. Well, one couple showing us how to dance in the snow. The moment captured just after midnight by Anne Wynn.

I wanted to see the snow outside, and then I noticed a couple. with a car on Fayetteville, and it looks like they were dancing. It played out on an empty, snow-covered Fayetteville Street in downtown Raleigh. It looks so beautiful through the window from my apartment. She noticed the couple dancing and thought in one moment there could have been a proposal. She quickly sent the video to her friends at Raleigh, downtown, where it was posted, and the video has since racked up more than 50,000 likes in less than 24 hours. Did you expect that that post would gain so much track?

Absolutely not. In the comments, everyone trying to find out who they were, including me, and many people and businesses offering the couple cakes, dinner, engagement photos, and even flowers. I still don't know if it was a proposal or not. After some social media sleuthing of my own and with help from others, we tracked down the couple who shared this ground-level video of the romantic snow dance, a more intimate view of the moment that captured so many hearts. The couple tells us they're already happily married.

Something like this we see in like movies in Hollywood, but it's real, it's real. An ice cold moment captured in time that's warmed so many hearts. The shy couple declining an interview tonight tell us they are grateful for the love from the community sparked by a simple picture and a sweet post. I was just glad that I was there to see it. You know what? You saw that on Instagram. You did some detective work. You unlock the mystery for us.

And it was so cool how so many people were moved by that and wanted to, if it was a proposal, wanted to offer all kinds of things to the couple. I know. If they wanted to get married again, they had a photographer, they had flowers, they had an engagement dinner. They had everything they would have needed to really capture the moment and celebrate. It was very special. And such a beautiful site there right in the heart of downtown Raleigh on Theafield Street. I know.

The power of social media. So we have to thank the photographer for that moment and rally downtown for posting it and getting us all happy and choked up and warm and fuzzy inside. cool moment last night in the snow. All right, all right. All right, talking about a little bit of a warm up.

I guess anything above freezing is a good thing because it'll help melt some of the stuff away. And we've been cold for tomorrow. That's right. This has been such a long stretch. It's just not something that we're used to here, I guess. And so we're going to see the tipters rise a little bit, but not enough.

So you guys earlier when I said it was going to get warm, y'all were like, uh, warmer. A little bit. Just a little bit. So 40s sound a lot better than the 30s and 20s. and 20s we've been dealing with. I can tell you tonight, though, with us going all the way down into the teens, anything that melted today when we briefly got above freezing in some spots, those wet spots are going to refreeze. So we're watching out for that black ice potential tonight. There will be additional melting tomorrow afternoon, but I will say if you're off tomorrow and I know many school districts are closed, if you're able to get out with your kids and you still got snow on the ground, use tomorrow as another sledding day while you still have the snow because it's going to melt pretty quickly. Tomorrow night we could see more refreezing. What if you're dropping below freezing again. And then we're watching for a midweek warm up with those 40s.

We will have some rain, maybe a few flakes at the backside of that, but overall, not anything that's going to accumulate for the middle of the week. So let's recap this storm that we had. I'm actually going to step out the way. And if you want to come and take a look at your screen, this is basically what we observed yesterday. The highest snow totals were along and east of I-95. There were parts of Wilson, Edgecombe, Halifax, Northampton, and Wayne counties that got eight to ten inches of snow and we had some impressive totals back in our western most counties as well so person county back toward orange and alamance chatham county and into more county as well now if you're in raleigh we're just showing you that proposal video thankfully the snow finally came

but that was a spot that saw significantly less snow compared to the rest of the region it was still enough though to make a daily record snowfall so we got 2.8 inches at rd u that broke the old record set back in 1948 of two and a half inches and that snow remains tonight with tipters dropping below freezing. So here's a live look at RDU and you can see there's some wet spots there right where the planes are parked. So that's likely some ice that is showing up there. Tipters are already in the mid-20s at RDU and it only gets colder through the rest of tonight and we can see that on first alert predictor. So with a clear sky and a wind out of the northwest that knocks us all the way down into the teens tonight. We will at least start off with sunshine. So at least you've got a

sunny commute if you have to go to work early in the morning. But once again, watch out for those wet spots. Now by the afternoon, it's still sunny. Tipters are in the middle to upper 30s. We see that brief period of melting and then it refreezes again overnight. Now something interesting into Tuesday morning that predictors consistently picking up on here is that we could see some fog into Tuesday morning with tipters below freezing though that could be freezing fog, meaning those little water droplets making up the fog particles that could actually stick to things that it lands on. So be cautious of that. Now by the afternoon, Tuesday, it'll actually be warmer than tomorrow with highs reaching the low to mid-40s. Back to tomorrow. That morning commute could be a bit icy.

Just take it slow on the roads. If you have four-wheel drive, make sure that that's turned on. Overall, you want to be going a lot slower than you normally would. And anything that looks wet, don't trust it. Even if you're just walking the dog tomorrow morning, you've got to be careful of those slick spots on the sidewalks. So tipters will be coolest tomorrow across the northern tier in the triangle and Sand Hills upper 30s there. Once again, pretty much all of us above freezing. Those secondary streets though, I think that's where we'll see the most problems

throughout tomorrow. Through the middle of the week, our winds turn out of the south. That pushes us into the mid-40s. And then this system here, it's actually gonna, since the winter out of the south ahead of it, it's gonna be a bit too warm to see snow at the onset.

We likely deal with rain. So chilly showers throughout the day on Wednesday, Wednesday night into Thursday, see those little blips of snow there popping up in the mountains. We might catch a few flakes on the back side of that. But once again, I want to stress that's likely not going to be an accumulating snow for us. I can tell you what that will do though is it locks back in cold air that's likely going to last through the middle of the month.

So below average temperatures are expected to continue. And that's because our average highs this time of the month are about the mid 50s. And you can see this is a pretty cold seven day forecast with tipters in the 40s through the middle of the week. So that's the warmest we're going to get. We'll see another brief warm up Friday. Tipters come back down Saturday and into Sunday of next weekend. We should be in the low 40s. So overall, staying pretty cold. We're just watching out for the near term and those slick roads tonight. Back to you.

All right. Cruz, the warm up is on the way. Thank you. All right. So we come here on eyewitness news tonight. A five-year-old boy and his father who were taken into custody by immigration agents are now back in Minneapolis after getting released from a detention center in Texas. We have reaction from the Trump administration.

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the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office tells us it happened just before 8.30 tonight on summer wind drive. The victim was taken to the hospital in stable condition. Detectives are now investigated. Also new here at 11, a 24-year-old man is dead after a shooting in Lumberton this afternoon. The Robinson County Sheriff's Office tells us the shooting happened during a domestic dispute at the Morgan Britt Park apartment on Oxendine Circle. Chikari Clark was brought to UNC Southeastern Medical Center by family members. He died from his gunshot injuries. The case is being investigated by the Robinson County Sheriff's Office, homicide and criminal investigations division.

In Johnston County, a woman is recovering tonight after she was. hit and dragged by a pickup truck. This happened last night at the intersection of Lizzie and Seller Streets in Selma. An officer said they found this woman motionless covered in snow. And when an officer got out to help the woman, a pickup truck approached the intersection. Police tried to stop the truck. It initially did stop, but then it drove forward hitting and dragging the woman. She was taken to the hospital. She is expected to be okay. A person driving a truck matching the description of the truck involved was stopped, but that person was let go at the time. And as of now, no charges have been filed.

A five-year-old boy and his father, who are asylum seekers, are back in Minneapolis tonight. The two were detained by federal agents last week and sent to a Texas detention facility. A federal judge ordered their release as their immigration case proceeds through courts. Liam Conejo Ramos and his father have been detained for more than a week now. They were taken by immigration agents from their suburban Minneapolis driveway. In an exclusive video, ABC's John Cignoness was on that plane with Liam and spoke with his father, Adrian. We're happy to finally be going home again, he says. The Department of Homeland Security says ICE did not target or arrest a child.

They say the father told officers he wanted Liam to remain with him when agents arrested him. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche says the Trump administration will appeal that judge's decision. After the break of snowy day in the triangle giving way to some heated action on the ice at the Lenovo Center. We'll show you the highlights of the Keynes home game against the Los Angeles that ended in overtime. Our first alert day coverage continues, and this time we're taking it to the skies. Chopper 11 is giving us a bird's eye view of all the snow blanketing our area. Yeah, and the snow is stopped, but the fun is far from over. We're taking a look at some photos from our eyewitness news viewers.

You'll see how a lot of local families spent the snow day today.