Thunderstorm Wind — Anoka, Minnesota

2011-07-01 · near East Bethel, Anoka, Minnesota

Event narrative

A large area of eastern Anoka County received damage from severe straight line winds that moved from west to east across the area between 1850 to 1900 CST. Damage includes power lines, railroad crossing gates, personal property and trees. Three injuries occurred near Linwood at Camp Ajawah. A spotter measured 69 mph in the eastern part of East Bethel, or 2 miles north-northwest of Linwood.

Wider weather episode

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.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (45.2837, -93.1833)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 323348. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.