EF1 Tornado — Clearwater, Minnesota

2018-08-26 · near Pine Lake, Clearwater, Minnesota

Event narrative

This storm began 3 miles north-northeast of Fosston (in Polk County) at 1151 pm CDT. This tornado tracked intermittently from 3 miles north-northeast of Fosston to 9 miles north-northeast of Leonard (in Clearwater County), a total of about 26 miles. Hundreds of trees were damaged, uprooted, or snapped along the track. Numerous cabins, farm outbuildings, houses, campers, boats, and crops were also damaged. The tornado was likely wrapped in downburst winds and rain at times.

Wider weather episode

Thunderstorms flared up across southern Cass County (North Dakota) on the afternoon of August 26th, dropping some large hail. After a several hour break, another storm intensified and dropped large hail over north central Becker and southern Mahnomen counties in Minnesota. Then after 8 pm CDT, a line of storms from north central North Dakota spread into the Devils Lake region. These storms produced damaging wind gusts. After 9 pm CDT, another line of storms formed ahead of the Devils Lake line, and these also tracked to the east. This line brought hail and damaging wind gusts to the Valley City and Grand Forks areas. Eventually, both lines of storms moved into the central and northern Red River Valley, then progressed into northwest Minnesota. As they did, they continued to produce damaging winds. Within the lines, several long track tornadoes also formed. Both of these occurred from the northeast corner of Norman County up toward the Lower Red Lake in Minnesota. Quite a bit of tree damage resulted along this track.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (47.6700, -95.5500)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 775466. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.