Radar image of Saturday Morning storms.

Area Description

Strong to severe storms impacted the area this very early this morning around 12am last night and into the early morning hours. These storms sent widespread very strong 40 to 54MPH winds and heavy rains to the entire local area causing spotted widespread damage. Spotty damage was reported throughout Dodge, Goodhue and Olmstead Counties. Reports came in from near Cannon Falls as well as Pine Island. The highest area of damage reports were seen right around the Rochester Metropolitan area. No areas were missed by this line of storms. In fact this line was part of a much large complex line of storms that actually stretched from the Iowa board northward to the Canadian boarder bringing severe winds in a very fast moving line of storms produced a swatch of damaging winds across the state of Minnesota through the Twin Cities Metropolitan area into Western Wisconsin and areas north and south. The case of the storms was a very sharp cold front pushing into Minnesota. Temperatures on Friday were in the lower 90s, 92.F here in Rochester. After the passing of the front temperatures were knocked down from around 81.F at midnight into the middle 60s in the matter of minutes. Besides bringing high winds and cool temperatures rains were seen ranging from 0.30″ to very beneficial nearly 2 amounts. The highest rainfall amounts came from the central part and far southern of the area

Shelf cloud rolling into Rochester early Saturday morning

I watched as storms first fired in South Dakota and began pushing into Minnesota. I was quite surprised they were already passing through Minnesota and reached Eastern Minnesota in the matter of about 3 hours. There were moving east at a very fast rate of speed around 60MPH. After watching the storms produce 50+ MPH winds in communities to the west I decided to go out and take pictures and video as the storm pushed in thinking winds would be fairly strong. As I watched the storm come in first came large rolling shelf cloud which pushed in from the northwest. You could easily see it becuase of city lights reflecting off of the clouds.

Video of strong winds blowing through my West Downtown neighborhood

As the shelf cloud pushed in, I felt the winds switch from southeast to west. First the wind was just a light cool breeze. Then suddenly the wind became very strong and quite chilly as the temp dropped from 81 to 66.F. There were 2 bursts of wind I noticed one just as the storm front pushed in and a second right before the rain started. The winds were very intense where I sat filming on the front steps. Sand and dirt were hitting me, and as I looked over just to the east of the building in the photo I could see significant dust blowing around in a huge circle. When I went back inside as it started to rain, I had learned the wind gust clocked 2 blocks east of me was 54MPH. There was thankfully nothing but minor damage in our yard, when I went around the neighborhood there was significant tree damage including a large section of an oak tree which fell and caused minor damage to a home a few houses up from ours. It surprised and slightly startled me to realize all this damage was occurring as I was sitting on the front steps getting photos and video. Storms continued through the rest of the morning in 2 other waves and we ended out with 1.47″ of rain in our yard.

Ash tree branch split St Marys Park.

Significant tree damage was seen in weaker conjoined and improperly pruned trees across the city. Most fell in a way where it did not cause problems. But there were at least 3 instances where trees were reported down on business and homes in all areas of the city.

Large Pin Oak branch snapped August 4th 2012

Tree damage was reported throughout Rochester. I heard of reports of a large tree down in Emerald Hills and trees down in Northwest Rochester. I also had friends report power outages in Elton Hills. Some of the worst damage I’ve personally seen were in my own West Downtown neighborhood. Besides seeing what I mentioned above there was also a tree reported down on an apartment complex in the same neighborhood. and section of trees and large branches down in St Marys Park as seen above. When going to work in Northern Rochester Saturday Morning several clay pots had flown off the shelves and broken due to high wind.

Rochester Metropolitan Area Reports

West Downtown Rochester 54MPH wind gust. Several large section of trees snapped, some falling on homes causing minor damage.

Northwest Rochester 52MPH, Tree branches and large trees down.

Emerald Hills Large Tree Down

Elton Hills, Large branches down power outages.

Rochester Airport 44MPH

Entire Area Reports

3 miles SE Stanton 1.25″ diameter branch down

Pine Island large branches down around main street.

Red Wing 45MPH wind gust

Dodge Center 43MPH wind gust

Preston 41MPH wind gust

Austin 40MPH wind gust

Rainfall Reports

Le Roy 1.80″
Byron 1.54″
West Downtown Rochester-My Station 1.47″ 
Dover 1.43″
Red Wing  1.36″
Cannon Falls 1.01″
Lanesbro 0.91″
Preston 0.85″
Dodge Center 0.84″
Austin 0.83″
Kellogg 0.48″