Heavy rain brings flooding to the North Shore, closes trails and roads
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Parts of northeast Minnesota are cleaning up Wednesday after strong thunderstorms dropped several inches of rain in less than 24 hours across the Arrowhead.
Woody Unruh, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Duluth, said the heaviest rainfall was from Grand Rapids to Lutsen on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Rainfall amounts ranged from 3 inches to more than 7 inches.
A weather station near Isabella in Cook County reported 5.6 inches of rain Tuesday. A similar total, 5.58, was reported near Aurora.
The rain flooded streets and basements across the Iron Range and washed out some local roads. The Minnesota Department of Transportation said some state highways north of the Iron Range remained closed early Wednesday morning due to flooding.
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Street flooding was reported in Duluth and numerous washouts and closures were reported on county and local roads.
Unruh says one area that was especially hard hit was near Cook.
“There was about 12 inches of water that was standing on some of the area roadways around there. And there was also a golf course that did go underwater,” he said.
Cook County officials advised no travel overnight due to flooding and downed trees in the wake of the storms.
“A lot of the roads had trees down on them last night,” Cook County Sheriff Pat Eliason said. “You can see damage of washouts, gravel over the paved roads where the ditches couldn’t handle the runoff.” He anticipates roads to be cleared by the end of Wednesday.
Flood warnings remain in effect Wednesday from Leech Lake and Grand Rapids east to Hibbing, Ely and the North Shore.
More rain in the forecast later this week could mean high-water problems, Unruh said.
“Right now, it’s not appearing as severe as what we had yesterday, but it is going to be additional rainfall,” he said. “And just given how saturated the soils are, essentially any rainfall, could lead to at least minor flooding. So it is something we are monitoring closely.”
Flooding closes trails, campgrounds
More than 6 inches of rain swelled the Baptism River along Lake Superior's North Shore, flooding trails and destroying a bridge at Tettegouche State Park.
The suspension bridge that spanned the Baptism River above High Falls has been destroyed by the high water. It had been closed since 2022. It's now broken and hanging on by one side.
Park manager Katie Foshay says visitors who come to see the park's raging waterfalls should use caution.
“The water is very swift, and you get too close to some of the water’s edge right now, you might not know that it has eroded the ground underneath,” she said. “Some of the roads have buckled in the area around the Arrowhead region, and so just being extra cautious and diligent when people are out exploring.”
The park's popular Cascade Trail, which flooded a couple of weeks ago, has completely washed into the river. High water also closed a state forest campground just north of Tettegouche.
Water was also crashing down Gooseberry Falls on Wednesday. Visitors are usually able to climb on rock ledges around the meandering waterfall, but high water levels have created a “wall of water.”
MPR News editor Andrew Kruger was at the waterfall Wednesday morning. He said “usually, on a typical day, you've got some water and some rock... just kind of nicely flowing down to Lake Superior. When it's this high, when I'm looking out here right now, it's just a solid wall of water. You don't see any of that rock. It's really impressive.”
Krueger said the staircases leading to the falls were closed off to hikers Wednesday morning. And, closer to the lake, he said some of the trail is underwater and off limits.
Rivers rise, some reach major flood stage
The Baptism River near Beaver Bay, the South Fork of the Crow River at Delano and Mayer and the Mississippi River at St. Paul are all at or expected to reach major flood stage in the coming days, according to the National Weather Service. As of Wednesday morning, active flood warnings were also in effect for the Cottonwood and Minnesota rivers.
State Climatologist Luigi Romolo says flooding this late in the year isn’t too uncommon, happening most recently in 2019 and 2014.
Rivers in Minnesota are classified as northern rivers, meaning during the winter they’re ice-covered and topped with snow. When the spring melt happens, snow and ice from streams and ponds, along with that already on top of rivers, combine into “spring pressure,” pushing up water levels.
“That’s usually the most significant hydrological event of the year,” Romolo said. Minnesota is experiencing no drought for the first time in two years and the soil is saturated with heavy spring rains. Normally, central Minnesota is hit with 3 to 6 inches of precipitation from April 1 to now. “We’ve had about anywhere from 13 to 17 inches of rain over the last two and a half months… Because it’s been so wet, we’re starting to see discharges in rivers… that are extremely high for this time of year.”
Record rainfall at MSP
Since May 24, 5.98 inches of rain has fallen at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. That means in the past 3.5 weeks, we’ve had more rain there than all of last summer — June, July and August — combined. The summer 2023 total at MSP was only 5.79 inches.
“Of course, we were in a major drought last summer,” said MPR meteorologist Sven Sundgaard. “But still it’s pretty remarkable how things have turned.”
Injured child rescued in BWCA
Tuesday night, a 9-year-old boy was struck by a tree during the storm in the Boundary Waters. Initial emergency dispatch reported the boy had swelling in his head, radiating pain and was vomiting. Cook County Sheriff Pat Eliason said they immediately activated search and rescue teams despite the deluge.
It was “very windy, rainy, it was about as bad as you can get,” Eliason said. “Especially when you’re trying to get into the BWCA quickly.”
Using boats, crews found the boy within a couple of hours, as flying was impossible.
The rescue crews are “absolutely fantastic… I cannot say enough about them,” Eliason said. “They are all purely volunteers. So yes, they left their homes last night and left their families to go out and brave that storm… to help somebody else.”
As of noon Wednesday, the boy’s condition was unknown.
Find forecast updates on MPR Weather’s Updraft blog.
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