Thunderstorm Wind — Martin, Minnesota

2022-05-11 · near Ceylon, Martin, Minnesota

Event narrative

A few trees were blown down north of Ceylon.

Wider weather episode

A cluster of storms produced large hail stones west of Granite Falls, near Olivia, and northeast toward the northwest suburbs of the Twin Cities. Most of these storms were elevated but had a steep lapse rate to generate large hail, up to 2 inches in diameter at times.

These late morning, and early afternoon storms moved northeast out of Minnesota. A warm front lifted northward across southern Minnesota during the afternoon with a potent shortwave moving northeast out of Nebraska. This shortwave generated a large complex of storms and quickly moved northeast across southern Minnesota and produced numerous damaging wind gusts, tornadoes and hail. There were even some flooding concerns as three to five inches of rain fell across portions of west central and central Minnesota by the late evening as the storms diminished and moved off to the northeast.

Three tornadoes occurred within the large bow echo that surged from southwest Minnesota, northeast toward east central Minnesota. One occurred in Brown County, another in Sibley and Carver County, and a third in Anoka County. All of the tornadoes were rated EF0 and produced mainly tree and roof damage.

According to Xcel Energy, more than 75,000 customers were without power across southern Minnesota during the peak of the storm.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (43.5700, -94.6300)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1021779. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.