Wintry mix spreads across Minnesota

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I’m still getting storm reports from Sunday night’s severe storms across Minnesota. Let’s break down what we saw and what we know about our Sunday night/Monday morning storms.

This was one of the most remarkable storms I’ve ever witnessed visually. The sheer volume of continuous lightning was phenomenal. Residents around the Twin Cities and beyond witnessed one of the most remarkable lightning shows in recent memory. 

The storms formed ahead of a slow-moving cold front. The cells kept back-building over and near the Twin Cities in an area of high convectively available potential energy (CAPE). This process was clearly evident on the GOES-16 IR satellite loop.

Because storms kept forming and moving slowly over the same areas, multiple waves of torrential rainfall occurred in many places. 

The heaviest rain was centered on the southwest Twin Cities. Some communities picked up more than 4 inches of rain. That’s more than a month’s worth in one night.

Flash flooding at night leads to scenes like this.

Intense updrafts in the storms produced some huge hail cores. The Weather Lab in Victoria, Minn. was among the first to pick up gold ball-sized hail after 9 p.m. last night. The hail event lastest for nearly 15 minutes.

We got off lucky. Check out this close to baseball-sized hail near Loretto. 

Multiple hail cores tore through areas west of the Twin Cities last night.

There are reports coming in of crop damage in Minnesota and Iowa.

I’m still getting storm reports coming into the Weather Lab. It seems pretty likely roof, car, and crop damage will run into the millions from this remarkable storm event.

Weather and Climate News

Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

Paul Huttner

Author

Severe storms dumped 5 inches of rain and near-baseball size hail.

A month's worth of rain, giant hail, wicked lightning and crop damage

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