Video of strong winds from a storm in New Hampton,IA June 12th.

Some residents of the area are dealing with damage from a round of severe thunderstorms that developed yesterday afternoon evening both in Southern Minnesota and across North Iowa. The cause of the severe weather was an usually strong low pressure system and stationary front which both were situated just south of our area. This along with muggy dewpoints in the 70s and a twist in the atmosphere was the perfect set up for an explosion of severe thunderstorms. Local NWS offices were so concerned a PDS ( partially dangerous situation ) tornado watch was issued for most of our area.

Region Reports

Across the region was a very active day not only for our area but several areas of the 2-3 state area. An area of the central part of Iowa had tornadoes including several close calls for a least 2 large Iowa Cities including the Waterloo-Cedar Falls and Dubuque areas, Luckily there were no touchdowns in those populated areas. One storm produced a tornado causing significant damage to the town of Belmond,IA where NWS employees will be surveying the damage today. Other tornadoes did major damage to residents near rural areas near Hampton.  Another line of severe thunderstorms produced significant wind and hail event for Southern Minnesota in the Mapleton Albert Lea Areas. Severe weather was also seen in Illinois and east at the same time as these rounds were going on. North Illinois including the Chicago metro dealt with high winds causing damage in that area.

 Storm in New Hampton looking southwest towards the strongest part of the storm towards Nashua.

Several storm complex moved through different areas at different times yesterday evening. Most of the tornadic activity stayed to our south as our area dealt with storms producing high wind hail and torrential downpours. One storm complex moved southeast out of Minnesota across southwestern parts of our area. Damage was reported in Charles City, I went to chase this storm and ended up in New Hampton where I saw high winds and heavy rain in the video above. The worst part of this storm pasted to my southwest. Other storms complexes developed some remained just torrential downpours and did not become severe, while others became severe. A storm that produced golf ball sized hail in Fillmore County Minnesota developed off the outflow boundry of storms developing in Howard and Winnishiek counties. A 3rd complex of damaging wind storms developed in North Central Iowa and produced another round of severe winds for southwestern parts of the area for the 2nd time this day. Nora Springs was the hardest hit towns yesterday with numerous trees and power lines reported down. Torrential rains from storms repeatedly going over the same areas coupled with an extremely wet spring caused major flooding of the Shell Rock River with numerous roads being reported washed out in the Nora Springs area with flooding concerns now being seen for the Charles City area

Local Storm Reports

5 miles S Whalan golf ball sized hail

Charles City, Trees down in the city

Nora Springs 59MPH measure wind gust

Nora Springs, Numerous trees and power lines down

Nora Springs-Flash Flood Numerous roads impassible or washed out, water to the top of the levee