Thunderstorm Wind — Lake, Minnesota

2016-07-21 · near Forest Center, Lake, Minnesota

Event narrative

Severe thunderstorm winds knocked down numerous trees near the Prairie Portage area of Basswood Lake right on and near the Canadian border. Trees were blown down near the campsite of 9 campers who were affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America. One woman (age 39) and one boy (age 13) were killed when trees fell on their tent. Two other campers were injured with non-life-threatening injuries. The campers were technically in Canada, but added this to the event record for historical purposes since the campers were so close to the US border.

Wider weather episode

A cluster of thunderstorms developed over eastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota the evening of Wednesday July 20th. The outflow from the storms coalesced into a couple of main bow echoes that quickly sped across northeast and central Minnesota during the wee hours of the morning of Thursday July 21st. The multi-bow storm quickly spread across northern and central Minnesota in the hours before sunrise, causing extensive damage across the region from widespread straight-line winds of 60 to 80 mph. One of the hardest hit areas was Duluth, with a couple wind gust reports around 100 mph. The bow echo that moved through far northern Minnesota killed two people in Quetico Provincial Park, only about 1 mile into Canada from the Boundary Waters Wilderness area of far northern Minnesota. Power was out to 75,000 customers. many homes were without power for as long as a week. lost power because of so many downed power lines. One hundred power poles were damaged and needed replacing. Minnesota Power, the main provider of power in northeast Minnesota, described the storm and its resulting devastation in Duluth, as the worst in at least a half century.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (48.0500, -91.4400)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 641438. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.