Thunderstorm Wind — Pepin, Wisconsin

2021-07-28 · near Arkansaw, Pepin, Wisconsin

Event narrative

There were numerous trees and power lines blown down between Arkansaw and west of Durand. Some of the debris landed on houses and vehicles, plus some of the trees were blocking Highways 10 and 25. The worst damage was west of the Chippewa River. Power outages were also reported in Pepin and Stockholm areas.

Wider weather episode

During the early evening of Wednesday, July 28th, scattered thunderstorms developed along a slowly moving frontal boundary across Northern Wisconsin. A very warm layer above the surface kept most of the activity isolated until early evening as thunderstorms developed north of St. Croix Falls to Ladysmith, Wisconsin. These storms continued to build southward, and a few developed over east-central Minnesota near Chisago City before moving into Polk County, Wisconsin.

During the evening, the storms congealed into a solid line of severe storms as they tracked southward across west central Wisconsin.

As the storms moved southward, several tight circulations developed, one stronger circulation near New Richmond produced a tornado southeast of town. This tornado damaged about one dozen homes, mostly due to shingles, soffits or siding being torn off. One house, however, had windows blown in and had partial roof damage. It also had a garage that was completely blown apart and destroyed, but the garage had been added on and was not part of the original house itself. Another house had damage to its front porch overhang, which allowed wind to enter the attic and punch a hole through the roof on the backside of the house. At a farm, an old barn collapsed. At another house, part of the roof was blown off a machine shed.

Other storm surveys revealed two areas of significant downburst winds. One was determined that a downburst blew down hundreds of trees along a broad swath from 4 miles SSW of Deer Park, to 9 miles north of Baldwin. The trees were blown down from the north, northeast or east. There was roof damage to one local business. The second area was determined that a downburst hit the west side of Spring Valley. Numerous trees, sheds and power lines were blown down. A school gymnasium roof was damaged and a lot of the debris landed on houses and vehicles. A local resident stated that the severe winds persisted for several minutes.

Outside of these damaged areas, there was minor damage to trees and power lines over Barron, Dunn, Rusk, Chippewa, St. Croix and Pierce counties.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (44.6423, -92.0325)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 964260. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.