Hail in Carver County, Minnesota

Several trained spotters reported numerous dime, up to baseball size hail from north of Watertown, southeast to the southeast part of Watertown. Damage was extensive to crops and homes throughout the area.

The atmosphere became very unstable Saturday afternoon, and along with a strong wind shear, aided in the development of very large hail, isolated tornadoes and significant straight-line wind damage.

The first storm developed near Alexandria and moved southeast along Interstate 94 before dying in the southwest part of the Twin Cities late that afternoon. Numerous reports of very large hail, up to the size of softballs, occurred near St. Cloud, southeast to Watertown.

The next area of severe storms developed across central Minnesota, and far west-central Minnesota and moved east and southeast toward east-central Minnesota where a strong bow echo developed and moved across the northern portion of the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area.

There was widespread damage along the leading edge of this bow echo where numerous trees, power lines and homes were either uprooted, blown down, or destroyed.

These storms moved into west-central Wisconsin and also caused damage to trees before weakening toward the late evening.