Twelve years ago Chicago experienced one of its worst Halloweens as a driving rain storm brought more than two inches of rain to much of the area. The chilly, wind-driven rain created awful conditions for trick-or-treaters. That night at Soldier Field, where the Bears lost to the Green Bay Packers 33-6 in a nationally televised Monday night game, strong NE winds--at times gusting in excess of 60 m.p.h--blew the rain horizontally making it almost impossible to see. At 8:00 p.m. kickoff, moderate rain was falling and 40 m.p.h. NNE winds were gusting to 54 m.p.h.

Storm produced tragic consequences

Four hours before the game, as the low pressure center passed through the area, colder air began to feed into the storm as winds backed into the north. Temperatures began to fall both at the surface and aloft creating severe icing conditions in the clouds. At that time, an American Eagle plane en route to Chicago from Indianapolis was in a holding pattern over northwest Indiana at about the 10,000 foot level awaiting landing clearance at O'Hare. As the plane circled, ice accumulated on its wings, eventually causing it to roll out of control and crash near Roselawn in northwest Indiana killing all 68 on board. As the storm moved out of the area during the overnight hours, the rain changed to wet snow. While none accumulated in the city, snow did whiten the ground in the colder western suburbs.

Sources: National Weather Service, Frank Wachowski

WGN-TV/Thomas Valle, Steve Kahn, Nicole Zuck, William Oswald

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Tom Skilling is chief meteorologist at WGN-TV. His forecasts can be seen Monday through Friday on WGN-TV News at noon and 9 p.m.

WGN-TV meteorologists Steve Kahn, Richard Koeneman and Paul Dailey plus weather producer Bill Snyder contribute to this page.