Crews confirm EF2 tornado caused destruction in Minnesota
A confirmed tornado tore through Forada, Minnesota, on Memorial Day, possibly damaging as many as 100 homes and downing power lines, according to one county official.
AccuWeather forecasters had been warning of the potential for severe weather across the Upper Midwest, including Minnesota. Sure enough, a swath of Minnesota was placed under a tornado watch on Monday, including the city of 170 residents that is located roughly 134 miles northwest of Minneapolis. The watch was classified as a particularly dangerous situation.
"We do not include this wording often. The environment favors strong tornadoes and anyone in the watch needs to monitor this situation closely," the National Weather Service Twin Cities office said in a Facebook post just before 2:40 p.m. CDT.
Two hours later, reports of tornado damage began to pour out from Forada with the National Weather Service warning that a confirmed tornado was tracking toward the east side of Alexandria, a city roughly 8 miles north of Forada.
A storm survey conducted by the NWS on Tuesday confirmed that the tornado was at least EF2 strength and packed winds up to 120 mph. The team also found evidence of multiple vortexes and a path width of at least a half mile, NWS officials said on Twitter.
Survey teams assessed the damage across parts of Douglas and Todd counties on Tuesday, the latter of which had also been hit, the county's director of emergency management, Michael Wisniewski, told The New York Times. While Wisniewski reported there were also no injuries or deaths in the county, at least one home had lost its roof and many power lines had been downed.
 |
NWS survey teams assess the damage left behind by a confirmed tornado across parts of Douglas and Todd counties in Minnesota after severe weather swept through the area on Memorial Day. (Twitter/@NWSTwinCities) |
Julie Anderson, the director of emergency management for Douglas County, Minnesota, told The New York Times that there were no immediate reports of significant injuries or deaths in Forada, and rescuers had gone door to door to check on residents while utility crews cleared downed power lines.
"Oh, the devastation to homes, vehicles, trees -- it's unbelievable," Stephen VanLuik, Forada's fire chief, told KARE-TV of the damage left by the storm. "In this stretch of road that we're standing on now, if there isn't something that hasn't been hit, it's remarkable."
Forada's mayor, David Reller, told the Times that at least part of the city had taken "a direct hit," and many houses and structures had been damaged. The Times noted that as many as 100 structures had been damaged.
The damage from the tornado was limited to part of the city, Anderson said, and "wasn't widespread."
 |
NWS survey teams assess the damage left behind by a confirmed tornado across parts of Douglas and Todd counties in Minnesota after severe weather swept through the area on Memorial Day. (Twitter/@NWSTwinCities) |
However, across the rest of the state, destructive wind gusts were the primary cause of damage as the storms raced across the region Monday night.
Over 100 wind reports were logged on Memorial Day alone, with a large portion of them in Minnesota. While most of the wind ranged between 60 and 70 mph, officials at the Appleton Airport in Swift County, Minnesota, logged a wind report of 90 mph, according to the NWS Storm Prediction Center.
In Plato, Minnesota, a city 40 miles southwest of Minneapolis, the storms pried up parts of a barn's roof and tore off one of the walls while completely demolishing other structures and scattering pieces across nearby fields.
Minnesota Power, an electric utility company based in Duluth that provides electricity in the northeastern region of the state said on Monday that the severe storms caused extensive damage, leaving an estimated total of 13,000 of their customers without electricity.
"As our crews fully assess damage from Monday's storms, it's clear from [the] amount of damage to infrastructure it will be a multiday power restoration effort for the hardest-hit areas," the company said on Twitter Tuesday. Roughly 8,300 of their customers remained without power.
Across the state, over 40,000 customers remained without power as of Tuesday, according to PowerOutage.us.
Want next-level safety, ad-free? Unlock advanced, hyperlocal severe weather alerts when you subscribe to Premium+ on the AccuWeather app. AccuWeather Alerts™ are prompted by our expert meteorologists who monitor and analyze dangerous weather risks 24/7 to keep you and your family safer.
