Storm reports: Tallying damage from Wednesday's severe weather

We’re still tallying up the storm reports and damage from Wednesday's unprecedented December storms. The storms produced a near-continuous swath of severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings across Iowa and southeast Minnesota.

The NWS in La Crosse, Wis., confirmed a tornado near Lewiston, Minn., Wednesday night. It’s the first confirmed tornado in Minnesota in December and during meteorological winter.

However, if the survey underway in Hartland in southern Minnesota confirms tornado damage there, that will be the first actual December tornado since it occurred before the Lewiston touchdown.

Damaging winds

Wind damage is widespread across southern Minnesota. Here are the highest recorded wind gusts from the Twin Cities NWS office from the high wind warning event over Wednesday night:

Here are some recorded wind gusts from the La Crosse NWS office for southeast Minnesota. These include gusts from both severe storms and high wind warnings.

Worst storm event since 2004

The bigger picture of this event is astounding. Wednesday’s storm delivered the most 75+ mph wind gusts of any severe weather event in the U.S. since 2004. All of the other events occurred in the summer months.

Our forecast looks much quieter as we roll into a more typical December weekend.