Hail in Morton County, North Dakota

Thunderstorms developed during the evening hours over central North Dakota in a very unstable environment, with several becoming supercells. Initially, very large hail was the main threat, but as the episode continued, tornadic development became the primary concern from any storms, with a total of nine tornadoes occurring. The first tornado touched down southwest of Hannover in Oliver County, and less than an hour later another tornado developed north of Crown Butte Lake in northeast Morton County. Then, after approximately an hour and a half, seven tornadoes were reported in the span of one hour, from around 10:12 to 11:12 PM CDT, in Burleigh, Kidder, and Emmons Counties. The most damaging tornado, which was rated an EF-2, impacted a farmstead west of Temvik in Emmons County causing significant damage. Two notable tornadoes touched down just to the north of the city of Bismarck which were highly visible, but one only caused limited damage. In addition to the tornadoes, these storms produced very large hail. The largest hail reported was 3.5 inches in diameter in Oliver County near Hannover, which fell from the same storm that produced the first tornado in Oliver County. North of Bismarck, extensive damage occurred due to hail up to the size of baseballs falling in multiple rural subdivisions earlier in the evening before the tornadic storm arrived. Many hail reports were received from the ICECHIP (In-situ Collaborative Experiment for the Collection of Hail In the Plains) project in the area.