Weather Service confirms tornado touchdowns in Minnesota as cleanup continues from Thursday storms
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Friday was yet another day of storm cleanup across the Twin Cities and other parts of Minnesota and western Wisconsin, in the wake of severe storms that swept across the region late Thursday.
It was the third round of severe weather across the state this week — and it rolled through as some residents in the Twin Cities were still waiting to have power restored following strong storms late Monday and early Tuesday.
There were reports of tornadoes sighted Thursday evening near Isanti, north of the Twin Cities metro, as well as in Pierce and St. Croix counties in Wisconsin.
As of Friday evening, the National Weather Service’s Twin Cities office said its storm survey crews had confirmed at least three tornado touchdowns from Thursday’s storms:
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an EF1 tornado with peak winds of about 90 mph tracked for about 3 1/2 miles north of Andover in Anoka County, just before 4:30 p.m. It caused damage to trees.
an EF1 tornado with peak winds of about 95 mph was on the ground for nearly 10 miles in Anoka and Isanti counties, from near Oak Grove to Bethel to southeast of Isanti, just after 4:30 p.m. It uprooted trees, destroyed two farm outbuildings and damaged the roof of a pole barn.
an EF0 tornado with peak winds near 80 mph tracked for about 3 1/2 miles between Hastings and Miesville in Dakota County just after 5:45 p.m., causing tree damage.
The Weather Service had another survey team in western Wisconsin, and said it may confirm additional touchdowns as it continues to assess storm damage.
Elsewhere Thursday, strong winds knocked down trees and power lines — with particularly severe damage reported in Cottage Grove. City officials there said about a dozen homes were damaged, and they declared a state of emergency.
Cottage Grove Mayor Myron Bailey spent Thursday evening surveying storm damage in his community and spoke with MPR News on Friday about what he saw.
In one case, he said, a tree “literally went through the entire house, and there was a worry that there was an elderly couple in there. So I actually pulled over with the neighbor to verify that nobody was in the home, or that nobody was hurt. And thank goodness — they had just left and went shopping, so they were not in the home,” he said.
Bailey said he’s seen storm damage in Cottage Grove before — often resulting in tree limbs falling on power lines. But he said Thursday’s storm was much more severe, with entire utility poles snapped or tipped over.
Cleanup work was well underway by mid-morning Friday. Donald Armbruster had several family members on hand to help clean up the mess on his property in Cottage Grove.
“Couple big tree limbs come down in the back and hit the roof and yeah, did some major damage to the living quarters,” he said. Armbruster said he is well-insured to repair all of the damage to his home.
Also in Cottage Grove, a tree in Gary Wickard’s front yard came crashing down just a couple of feet from his pickup truck.
Limbs also snapped off large trees in his backyard and struck his house. Unlike some of his neighbors, he was home when storm blew through.
“Super windy, but real quiet. It was really eerie,” he said of Thursday’s storms. “Straight-line winds, I think — snapped it off and it landed on the roof. Couple holes in the back. Just doing a little cleanup now.”
There were also reports of major damage to trees and power lines in Anoka, Ramsey and East Bethel in the northern Twin Cities metro. And there were reports of flash flooding in Winona and also in Amery, Wis.
Xcel Energy and other utilities reported more than 10,000 customers remained without power as of Friday morning. That number was down to about 1,000 on Saturday morning, most of those in Cottage Grove and St. Paul Park.
Connexus Energy said it had crews in the field all night Thursday into Friday to repair outages across its service area north of the Twin Cities. The utility was hit hard by storms earlier in the week and had nearly completed those repairs — with fewer than 200 customers without power on Thursday afternoon — before the new round of storms knocked out power to thousands more.
The storms prompted officials at the Minnesota State Fair to temporarily close the gates late Thursday afternoon. The fair largely returned to normal operations within an hour.
Much quieter weather is expected regionwide for the Labor Day weekend.