[Jim Sciutto, Cnn Anchor:] One word best describes Wall Street this week, and that is volatility. And we could see more of it as the opening bell ringing just now on this shortened trading week. Alison Kosik is live at the New York Stock Exchange with more. Alison, looks like a positive opening, just as futures were telling us.
[Alison Kosik, Cnn Business Correspondent:] Come on, Jim, get back on the roller coaster with me. Let's do this again. Yes, we are seeing the Dow begin with green arrows. Nasdaq, S&P as well. But you know how things are here at on Wall Street, things could just change on a dime. Case in point, yesterday. You look at the Dow. It was solidly in the negative all day. Then the last 90 minutes of the trading day, it literally erases a 600 point loss and winds up higher by 260 points. It was nausea inducing and it really speaks to the volatility that's happening here on Wall Street. Now, there's not one reason for all of this volatility. Yes, some of this is yearend positioning. You've got investors trying to get as much profit out of what's been going on all year before they close the books on 2018. But there's also the realization that there's this cloud of uncertainty that is weighing on Wall Street. Pick your poison. There is uncertainty about global growth. There is the recent Federal Reserve moves. There's the unresolved trade situation. And then there's the uncertainty happening in Washington, specifically will Fed Chairman Jay Powell be able to keep his job in the new year? So you've got all this uncertainty weighing on Wall Street. It makes it difficult to trade. OK, so where are we are where are we right now? We are two days to go before the end of the year. So two more trading days. Here's the thing, even with all the gains that we've had in the past couple of days, December has still been a really rough month. And if you're checking out your portfolio, still, all the major indices are in the red for the year. We will see how things shape up today, Jim.
[Sciutto:] That's a look at look at the long-term trend lines. That's always a smart thing to do.
[Kosik:] Yes.
[Sciutto:] Alison Kosik, thanks very much. Right now millions of Americans are bracing for a messy, potentially dangerous even day as a deadly storm trudges eastward, blizzard conditions crippling the Midwest. Poor visibility leading to a crash that killed at least one person in Kansas. And in the south, flash flood emergencies as more than 11 inches of rain fell there. One woman killed after a tree fell on her home in Louisiana. Meteorologist Jennifer Gray tracking the latest. Jennifer, what should we expect? I mean it's raining hard here in D.C., but I know a lot of other parts of the country, the snow's coming down hard.
[Jennifer Gray, Ams Meteorologist:] The Midwest, that is winding down a little bit. So I think the focus moving forward will definitely be the rain, Jim, as we go into the rest of the afternoon and into tomorrow. Look at all this heavy rain. It stretches all the way from just east of New Orleans, Mobile, Alabama, all the way up to the northeast, even across portions of Maine getting snow. But some very heavy rain. Cloud to ground lightening. We're seeing gusty winds. And it's going to cause major airport delays all across the eastern seaboard, including the big cities, like New York City, Philadelphia, D.C., could all see delays today. Atlanta as well. And you can see that line of showers and storms. Some of the heaviest coming through in the next couple of hours. Ten or more inches of rain across portions of Mississippi yesterday. We have some video of that. This is what happens when a lot of rain comes down in a very short amount of time. And you can see that flash flooding there. And there's going to continue to be flash flooding in these areas over the next couple of hours. That's why we have flash flood watches and warnings all across portions of the south. And that stretches even up into the northeast, New York included in that, 50 million people in a flood threat. And you can see that most of the rain will be around the Florida panhandle. We will get pockets of say two to four inches, this is through Saturday morning. But one to two inches is really what we're going to see. And it could put Atlanta as the wettest year on record if we meet that before the new year. So these are the airport delays we can expect as far as today is concerned. New York City experiencing about two-hour delays. Atlanta, D.C. experiencing about 45 minutes to an hour. So if you are trying to travel, it is going to be very, very hard. That system moves out. Next system moves into the northeast just in time for New Year's Eve. Unfortunately, it looks like we're going to have a lot of rain across the east to ring in the new year. Jim.
[Sciutto:] Well, good luck. Travel safe for all those folks. Jennifer Gray, thanks very much. Syrian Kurds turning to their former enemy, Syrian Dictator Bashar al Assad, for help now. How President Trump's decision to summarily withdraw U.S. troops is threatening the security of the U.S.-backed allies on the ground.