Hail — Wells, North Dakota

2025-09-12 · near Fessenden, Wells, North Dakota

Wider weather episode

A surface low pressure system was located over central South Dakota while multiple short-wave troughs moved through southwesterly flow aloft. This led to multiple areas of thunderstorms developing, with some becoming severe. Initially, a storm became severe near Fessenden in Wells County in the morning, producing one inch diameter hail. Then in the early afternoon, another thunderstorm produced a brief tornado near Wheelock in Williams County. The tornado touched down in an open field and impacted no structures, therefore there was no damage to evaluate. By National Weather Service policy the tornado is rated EF-U (Unknown). Later in the afternoon into the evening, additional thunderstorms became severe over southwest North Dakota. The largest hail reported was the size of a ping pong ball, which fell at Solen in Sioux County.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (47.6500, -99.6200)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1294364. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.