Thunderstorm Wind in Redwood County, Minnesota

A long-lived and complex storm moved into western Redwood County around 322 PM CST, and moved northeast across mainly the northern 1/3 of the county before moving into portions of far southeast Yellow Medicine County and western Renville County.

Several hundred trees were either snapped or uprooted along with damage to several outbuildings and large grain storage bins. There were also reported areas of crops destroyed but either the wind or hail. Based on the damage reports and radar imagery, wind speeds were likely sustained above 70 to 90 mph, (isolated 100 mph wind gusts) for 10 to 15 minutes in any given location as the storm traversed the county.

A very hot and humid day occurred across southern Minnesota, and western Wisconsin Friday, July 1st. A frontal boundary held across the southwest part of the state, then northeast across east central Minnesota, and into portions of west central and northern Wisconsin.

During the afternoon, a large thunderstorm complex developed across southeast South Dakota, along this frontal boundary and moved into far southwest Minnesota. Several long duration supercells and bow echoes occurred along a path from the southwest, to the northeast across southern Minnesota, and into west central Wisconsin.

Several of the storms developed tornadoes near Redwood Falls, and again around St. Cloud, Minnesota. In addition to the tornadoes, severe straight line winds occurred. Plus, the development of the rear inflow notch, allowed for the strong winds to continue beyond the main bow echo across many areas of southern Minnesota.

Widespread damage occurred with this system along with hundreds of large trees blown down and structural damage to homes and barns. Widespread reports of hail with each storm, along with a few reports of baseball and softball size hail.

Several communities lost power with over 90,000 reported outages throughout southern and central Minnesota.