User:Mr. Goodweather1

Paul T. Huttner (born March 28, 1961) is an American meteorologist. He became the first chief meteorologist for Minnesota Public Radio in 2007. Huttner worked as a television broadcast meteorologist for 20 years in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Arizona before moving to radio weathercasts at MPR News.

Huttner is a member of the American Meteorological Society. He holds the AMS Seal of Approval for Television Weathercasting, and the AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist Seal. (CBM)

 Early Life 

Huttner grew up in Deephaven, Minnesota. His first living memory is the 1965 Twin Cities tornado outbreak on May 6, 1965. An F4 tornado passed just west of his home. The storm dropped giant hailstones from a green sky. Huttner cites that vivid memory as the spark for his career in weather.

Huttner is a graduate of Minnetonka High School and Macalester College.

Career

Huttner was an intern in the weather center at [./Https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/ WCCO-TV] during college in the early 1980s. He began his professional career as an operational meteorologist at Murray and Trettel (now Weather Command) in Chicago, Illinois in 1986. Huttner returned to WCCO-TV from 1988-1994 as a broadcast meteorologist. In 1994 Huttner was hired as the meteorologist for the debut of the WGN Morning News. In 1997 Huttner was hired as chief meteorologist for the ABC affiliate in Tucson Arizona where he worked through 2005. (KGUN9-TV)

In 2006 Huttner returned to WCCO-TV where he worked until his hiring at MPR News in 2007.

 1991 Halloween Blizzard 

In 1991 Huttner was the sole anchor at WCCO-TV for the infamous record Halloween Blizzard on the morning of November 1, 1991. Huttner was on the air live for several hours that morning. Most of the station's other news anchors and reporters could not make it to work in the heavy snow that day. WCCO-TV handily won the ratings that day during the height of the storm. The station reached a 44 share at peak viewing that morning in the Nielsen ratings.

The 1991 Halloween Blizzard is the biggest single snowstorm in Twin Cities history. It dropped 28.4 inches of snow on the Twin Cities, and 36.9 inches on Duluth.

MPR News

Huttner built the weather brand at MPR News as the network's first chief meteorologist starting in 2007. As of this writing he is still the only full-time chief meteorologist for a public radio network in America.

In the early 2010s Huttner created the Updraft weather blog. His Updraft analysis on the impact of winds on home run balls hit at Target Field is quoted in the New York Times.

In 2012 Huttner created MPR's Climate Cast, a weekly segment reporting on the latest climate science, news, and solutions. His work for Climate Cast has been profiled in the Guardian.

 Personal Life 

Huttner plays guitar, hockey, and golf. He his a member of the WCCO-TV Blues Band since the 1980s. The band plays benefits and other gigs.

 References 

1. https://www.weather.gov/mpx/19650506_Twin_Cities_Tornadoes Twin Cities NWS

2. https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/climate/journal/9110_31_halloween_blizzard.html Minnesota DNR Climate Working Group

3. Scientist in Focus https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/aug/21/scientist-in-focus-meteorologist-paul-huttner the Guardian 21 August 2014

4. Power Still Off at Twins New Home https://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/sports/baseball/05twins.html NY Times October 4, 2010

5. https://www.macalester.edu/news/2015/04/sunny-with-a-chance-of-snowballs/