Storms leave trail of damage across north-central and northeastern Minnesota

A National Weather Service survey team will fan out to three northern Minnesota counties to check out damage inflicted by powerful storms that rolled through Wednesday and try to determine if any tornados touched down.

“We know there was damage,” said Josh Sandstrom, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Duluth. “We suspected there might have been one.”

Crews will be out in Aitkin, Crow Wing and Carlton counties on Thursday to get the definitive answer, he said.

What is known is that several trees in the Cross Lake area were snapped, including a few a foot or greater in diameter, according to reports from the Weather Service. Winds flipped over a mobile home near Crosby, Minn. and hail ranging from pea size to golf ball size battered central and northeastern Minnesota.

The storms that popped up Wednesday afternoon and continued late into the night knocked out power to thousands across the northern part of the state. By Thursday morning, electricity had been restored to all but just under 1,000 customers in the hard-hit area of Cross Lake, Crow Wing Power reported. A handful of others served by Lake County Power and Minnesota Power remained offline Thursday morning.

The storms were so prominent that weekly midday weather radio tests were postponed until Thursday in Duluth and the Twin Cities.

“That’s typical if we’re expecting severe weather,” Levens said. “We want people to take the warnings we send out seriously.”

The severe weather largely missed the Twin Cities area, though hail 1 inch in diameter was reported in St. Francis, Zimmerman and Andover, the Weather Service said.

The National Weather Service also issued a flood warning for the Minnesota River at Morton in Renville County. The warning noted that other locations on the Minnesota River, including at Montevideo and Savage, remain above flood stage and that caution is urged along riverbanks. The warning, which forecasts minor flooding, is in effect until early Saturday afternoon.