Tornadoes touch down in southern Minnesota, heavy rains moving north

Tornadoes touched down in south-central Minnesota Wednesday evening, and the accompanying line of thunderstorms and heavy rains was moving into central Minnesota, according to the National Weather Service.

From the Associated Press:

A trained spotter reports 6-inch tree branches down and street signs bent over after a tornado struck about a mile south of Nicollet just before 5 p.m. Wednesday.

A tornado also was reported north of New Sweden, also in Nicollet County.

The weather service says a confirmed tornado was located Wednesday evening over Gaylord moving northwest at 15 mph.

Weather alerts were issued throughout much of southern and central Minnesota.

The weather service also said spotters confirmed a tornado at 6:01 p.m. near Winthrop, about 16 miles northeast of New Ulm. Spotters also confirmed a "large and extremely dangerous" tornado over New Sweden at 5:41 p.m., the weather service reported.

Logan Hoehn tweeted a photo of a tornado touchdown near the town of Nicollet. He spotted the twister on his way home from work and said it narrowly missed the town. "I was on the entrance ramp off of Highway 14 just outside of Nicollet. That was the second tornado that I had seen," Hoehn said. "The first one was about 20 minutes before that and had an awfully similar track."

Hoehn did not see obvious damage to buildings.