Strong storms move across Minnesota

Storm clouds over St. Paul
Storm clouds over the Minnesota Capitol and downtown St. Paul on Sunday afternoon.
Andrew Krueger | MPR News

Updated: 4:10 p.m. | Posted: 10:25 a.m.

Strong storms knocked out power to several thousand homes and businesses across Minnesota and western Wisconsin on Sunday morning.

Another line of strong thunderstorms moved through the Twin Cities during the midday hours of 1 p.m., then affected much of southeastern Minnesota. They prompted tornado warnings near Albert Lea during the mid-afternoon, but there were no immediate confirmed reports of tornadoes or damage.

In the Twin Cities, Xcel Energy reported more than 6,000 customers without power at one point in the wake of the early morning storms, though that number was down to about 3,000 as of 4 p.m. Many of those outages occurred in the wake of gusty winds that pushed out ahead of the morning storms.

The National Weather Service relayed scattered reports of trees down and large hail across the state, including a report of golf-ball-size hail near Remer just after 8 a.m.

Repeated rounds of storms also prompted flood advisories for parts of Itasca, Aitkin, Cass, St. Louis and Carlton counties during the morning hours.

Follow MPR's live weather blog for updates.