Rainbow on the back side of the Floyd Tornado storm cell. May 31st Lime Springs,Iowa

The area was again rocked by several waves Severe Thunderstorms Friday May 31st, this time as a sharp cold front pushed through the area. The front was a slow moving front which allowed for multiple waves of severe thunderstorms to develop 3-4 waves to be exact. The first storms of the day developed in Northeast sections of the area and became severe outside of our viewing area. Another lone cell later developed and produced a tornado near Floyd which caused tornado warnings to be issued for Howard County. The cell was very weak and the tornado it produced was small and brief. Numerous funnel clouds were reported in the Southwest part of Howard County before the storm quickly dissipated. After seeing the warning go out I chased the cell to Lime Springs, the tornado was already dissipated by this time but a nice cloud formations could be seen on the back side of the storm. The second and 3rd line of storms developed on a cold front much later in the evening right along the cold front. Thunderstorms exploded into a broken line over Southeast Minnesota near Austin and Rochester and quickly becoming severe producing hail and 57MPH in southern parts of the Rochester metro. There was one tornado warning for Olmstead County but nothing produced. These storms were more of a hail, high winds and  torrential rain event. Later during the evening more storms developed southwest into Iowa as the line filled in, but the storms developed and re developed for at least 2-3 hours over the same area of Mitchell County causing flooding near St Ansgar. Eventually the storms pushed east across the rest of North Iowa, but were weakened by that time to below severe thresholds.

May 31st storm reports

Southern Hills ( Rochester Metro) quarter sized hail 57MPH wind gust

Predmore quarter sized hail

7 miles SE Rochester golf ball sized hail

2 miles SW Eyota quarter sized hail

Le Roy quarter sized hail

St Ansgar quarter sized hail

Carpenter Flash Flood- Water starting to go over nearby roads