EF1 tornado in Rice County, Minnesota

A storm survey revealed an EF1 tornado developed just east of Cannon City, and tracked east-southeast for around 3.7 miles. Trees were uprooted and a branch completely impaled an outside wall of a home. Winds were estimated at 90 mph, with a duration of 5 minutes. No injuries were reported.

The early afternoon of Tuesday, July 5th, two areas of thunderstorms developed across west central Minnesota and produced several large hail stones. These two storms moved southeast across central and southern Minnesota and produced a swath of damaging winds, large hail and a few tornadoes during the late afternoon and early evening. Crop specialists from the University of Minnesota Extension service indicated that corn and soybean yields had some damage in central Minnesota, especially around Willmar. Corn had broken or bruised stalks, along with dislodged roots and leaf loss from the wind and hail.

The northern storm went from Alexandria, southeast to Paynesville, Buffalo and the northwest part of the Twin Cities metro area. Eventually this storm moved across most of the Twin Cities metro area, with the most damage from northern Hennepin, through Ramsey and southern Washington.

The second storm followed a similar path from west central Minnesota, southeast to just north of the Minnesota River Valley, then across the southern part of the Twin Cities metro area. The two storms merged across southern Minnesota from near Faribault, northeast to Red Wing, and to near Eau Claire Wisconsin. This storm rapidly moved southeast and became a large bow echo that raced across southern Wisconsin, and northern Illinois by Wednesday morning.

The northern storm produced several measured wind gusts in excess of 70 mph across Wright, Hennepin, Ramsey and Washington counties. The worst damage which a storm survey estimated winds near 80 mph, produced a six mile long damage path of downed transmission lines near St. Michaels and Rogers. As the storms moved into the western metro area, there were numerous reports of downed trees and power lines, with measured severe wind gusts at both Crystal and Flying Cloud airports. The downtown St. Paul airport also measured a severe wind gust as the storms moved into Ramsey and into Washington county. The Maple Grove hospital had structural damage to their building. Pavers from an upper roof blew off and penetrated a roof below. This caused rain to seep into patient rooms and to the 1st floor imaging and PCC.

There were some issues related to flooded roads in the Minneapolis, St. Paul metropolitan area, but most of the flooded roads were concentrated in poor drainage where rain water had no place to go.

The second and southern storm initially produced several large hail reports, up to 2 inches in diameter from Cosmos to Hutchinson. This storm began to bow out in the southwest suburbs of the Twin Cities near Jordon, Prior Lake and Burnsville and moved southeast. This storm produced two tornadoes, one east of Faribault, and another west of Goodhue.

During the height of the storm, Xcel Energy reported more than 138,000 customers without power.