Lightning seen as the thunderstorms were exiting my area during the early morning hours of June 21st

Strong-non severe thunderstorms pushed through the area around 5AM this morning along a large line that moved northeast and extended across most of Eastern Minnesota and Western Wisconsin. These brought heavy rain, gusty winds, and lightning that was quite intense. Power outages were reported that were likely caused from lightning strikes shut down power across 3 different parts, possibly even one large area. Some were without power for as long as 4 hours, One significant power outage effected Northern Clayton, and areas East of Clayton in Barron County near Reeve. A friend also reported that he was without power in the Rice Lake area. The power did go out completely for a short time at my location, but it was only a second before it turned back on.

Tree with significant lightning damage at my aunts house 1 mile south of Clayton

My uncle called me this morning to tell me that a tree only feet from two houses on their farm, and only a mile from my house was struck by lightning around 5:30 in the morning. I drove over right away and found major bark damage missing from all of the east side of the tree most of the way up the tree, one large section of bark see above was peeled off and was still partially attached to the tree.

A Chuck of wood sticking in the ground.

This piece of wood blew out and stuck into the ground from the force of the lightning, These was one of many pieces of bark that were flown across the yard, some pieces as far as 20 feet! Both my aunt and uncle were home during the time of the strike and the said they both hear a tremendous bang after a flash of lightning so bright it was blinding. My uncle said the power flickered out at their house immediately after the lightning hit, I was glad to hear, No one was hurt. After these photos were taken, My aunt and I removed as much of the bark as possible that was not attached to the tree to hopefully help in a healing process.

Windy conditions behind storms June 21st 2011

The other story with these storms were the heavy rainfall and gusty winds behind the storms. Winds really picked up behind the storms and lasted for quite awhile behind them, I had gusts of 36MPH on my gauge. There was a couple small branches down in the yard, bit there small enough to mow over. Rain with this line rain quickly accumulated to around an inch across many areas, and to 0.88″ at my location on top of over an inch of rain from last week, The fields are very saturated, and have water standing in them. We could actually use a nice dry, sunny period now.