Hail — Mercer, North Dakota

2023-08-01 · near Stanton, Mercer, North Dakota

Wider weather episode

A short wave trough moved through the region while its affiliated surface boundary moved from southern Saskatchewan and northeast Montana into northwest North Dakota, and continued to move towards the southeast. Thunderstorms along this line intensified greatly as it settled to the southeast into an environment of elevated instability and deep layer shear, with multiple areas of severe weather developing. Well ahead of the line, another distinct area of severe weather developed where storms initiated along various outflow boundaries, particularly when two boundaries intersected. These storms were northerly moving. Eventually, the fontal boundary settled far enough south that all storms became focused along it. Many storms became very intense, especially a long-lived supercell thunderstorm that originally became severe near central Williams County before moving southeast and remaining severe all the way to northern Burleigh County. The most intense damage from this storm was in the Beulah Bay and Hazen Bay areas of northern Mercer County, where parts of roofs were torn off homes, large trees were uprooted, manufactured homes were severely damaged, and some campers and boats were flipped. Winds were estimated to be up to 95 mph. In addition, crops were severely damaged over a widespread area, with many fields flattened and determined to be a total loss. Along with the large hail and severe wind gusts with this episode, there was one tornado near Wilton in Burleigh County. No damage was reported with the tornado and so by National Weather Service policy the tornado is rated EF Unknown.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (47.3400, -101.4500)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1132892. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.