By Harold Brutlag
The rains and tornadoes began Wednesday, June 12th and there are more to come before we will begin to dry out. There was plenty of lightening and thunder to go with the rain which inundated a big share of Wright County.
Numerous severe thunderstorms moved across north-central and northeast Minnesota on the evening of Wednesday, June 12, 2024, producing large hail to the size of baseballs, isolated thunderstorm wind damage, and several tornadoes. Two distinct supercell storms produced four tornadoes (rated EF-0 and EF-2) across portions of Crow Wing, Aitkin, and Carlton Counties between roughly 6:15 PM and 7:30 PM. The supercell that tracked through Crow Wing and Aitkin County produced three separate tornadoes, first on/near Upper Whitefish Lake across to Clamshell Lake, west of Crosslake, where a wide, sharp path of damage was found. This tornado dissipated, with a second tornado forming south of Wolford, west of Rabbit Lake (north of Crosby). This second tornado appeared to have a mainly continuous path of damage from near Wolford to Rabbit Lake to Cedar Lake to Hammal Lake. There may have been a break in this tornado as it traveled across the Crow Wing State Forest, but a combination of storm chaser and spotter video as well as ground surveys seemed to indicate a mainly consistent path of damage. This supercell then later produced a weak, wispy tornado with no known damage near Glen, MN, with the particular length of this tornado unknown due to limited access in this area.
That is briefly what happened on June 12 with more stormy weather promised for the rest of the week with periodic breaks on Wednesday and Thursday, before we get back to some sunshine the following week.
Unfortunate for Winsted their annual Winstock festival got pretty much washed away over the weekend and left the grounds a quagmire of mud which needed some heavy equipment to pull the wheeled campers to high ground. Channel 9 showed a string of John Deere various hp tractors which looked like a TV commercial.