UPDATE: 8:39 AM | Highway 18 will not reopen at noon, according to WSDOT. No word on when it will reopen.

ORIGINAL POST | Both directions of Highway 18 will stay closed between Federal Way and Auburn until about noon Friday, because of unsteady, ice-coated trees near the road lanes, the state Department of Transportation announced.

"They're really dangerous right now," said spokeswoman Jamie Holter before the closure began Thursday afternoon "It's 28 degrees, freezing rain."

This is in addition to a longer closure of Highway 18 between Auburn and Issaquah. Crews aren't expected to clear snow at Tiger Summit until Friday. Highway 900 is closed at May Valley, and Highway 202 closed from Fall City to Snoqualmie.

Trees are the biggest problem for the Thursday afternoon commute, Holter said. For a time, trees blocked three lanes of I-5 at Federal Way, before crews cleared those just before 5 p.m.

In other highlights:

* Sound Transit canceled two of the six commuter trains from Seattle to Tacoma. Others are taking 20 minute delays, as railroad workers control traffic in crossings where the gates are stuck.

* Link light rail is again running on normal schedules between Westlake Center and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, after frozen power wires caused train delays of more than an hour for hundreds of morning travelers.

* Seattle plans to call in utility truck drivers to relieve transportation truck drivers who have already worked multiple 12-hour shifts on plowing crews. Also, the city will send trucks to obtain extra salt, after its vendor was unable to deliver more tons of it fast enough.

* King County Metro Transit will keep buses on snow routes Friday morning, not expecting the slush to clear before then.

* The latest forecasts call for warming sometime late in the night -- but DOT points out that another inch or two of snow is expected, or one-tenth inch of ice, by then, adding further to the task of clearing roads. Most freeways are plowed or bare and wet, but even some busy stretches of I-405, Highway 599 and several sites in south Snohomish and north King counties still have the white stuff on the roadway. A DOT worker was injured on I-405 near Lynnwood by an out-of-control vehicle while helping another stuck motorist, but is expected to recover.