Trick or treat 40s tonight; Halloween Megastorm made a weather career?

42 to 47 degrees temperature range this evening for trick or treat time

+0.2 degrees October temps vs. average at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport

9.3 inches average November snowfall in the Twin Cities

Seasonably cool is how I'd describe the weather this evening for trick-or-treaters in Minnesota. The fog and drizzle are lifting, but the clouds hang in tonight. Throw a little Thinsulate under the costume this year and the kids should be good to go.

Scary Halloween Megastorm 22 years ago

It hardly seems like 22 years since I was sitting (alone) in the news studio at WCCO-TV in the midst of continuous coverage during the Halloween Megastorm. I battled 15 inches of snow to get into the station around 4 a.m. that morning, throwing up rooster tails of snow in my little Honda Accord hatchback, plowing down Interstate 394 on the way into downtown Minneapolis.

Jon Lansing, the assistant news director, trudged in in his Sorells and said, "Huttner, I want you to turn this into the Weather Channel. I want you to go on the air and stay on the air as long as possible." "Cool!" I replied.

I was on the air live for the better part of five hours solo anchoring WCCO's coverage that morning. No other anchors could make it into the studio. Trish Van Pilsum, who now leads the FOX9 investigative team, made it in and filed live reports from the WCCO rooftop and the desolate, snow-choked Nicollet Mall. The only traffic that morning on the mall was a cross country skier.

The next day news director John Culliton walked over with the ratings -- a 40+ share for several hours.

It was a great decision by Jon Lansing to go live and stay on the air during the biggest snow storm in Twin Cities history. As Culliton put it the next day, "Huttner, you're the only person in the history of WCCO-TV with their own 40-share."

Talk about your big break in TV. The Halloween Megastorm shut down a city, and helped make at least one weather career that day.