Wintry mix spreads across Minnesota

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This is one of those “it could have been so much worse” stories.

 touched down late Friday and Saturday nights. The twisters did some damage but fortunately caused no reported injuries. 

The first two tornadoes occurred as a massive squall-line raced through central Minnesota Friday night into early Saturday morning. An EF-0 tornado with 80 mph estimated winds tossed pontoon boats around and damaged docks and trees on Rush Lake about 50 miles north of the Twin Cities.

A second EF-1 tornado also touched down in northwest Isanti County. Here are the details on the two tornadoes from early Saturday morning.

Twin Cities area tornadoes Saturday night

Two tornadoes touched down along the Minnesota-Wisconsin border east of the Twin Cities Saturday night. The rotation signatures were captured clearly on the terminal Doppler radar at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

The first tornado near Afton, Minnesota was a weaker EF-0 with 65 mph winds. It on the ground for just nine minutes and produced little visible damage.

The second twister crossed into Wisconsin and was an EF-1 with 100 mph estimated winds.

The four twisters occurred late at night well beyond the statistical 3 to 7 p.m. peak for tornadoes in Minnesota. The first two were associated with the advancing MCS squall-line and likely spun up on the front edge of that system. 

The Saturday night twister occurred with discrete super cells that formed Saturday evening near and over the Twin Cities.

The Twin Cities metro area was very fortunate these tornadoes didn’t drop about an hour earlier. There would have been extensive damage to the greater Twin Cities. 

Weather and Climate News

Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

Paul Huttner

Author

Four tornadoes touched down in eastern Minnesota last weekend.

Four nighttime tornadoes touched down in eastern Minnesota last weekend

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