Storm front of the morning storms on July 30th 2011
Area Report
July 30th brought yet another stormy day to Western Wisconsin, the area was actually plagued with severe storms twice on Saturday July 30th, which developed along a stationary front that was sitting over the area, After brief morning sun, and rising temperatures along with humidity, storms that were ongoing in Minnesota pushed into Western Wisconsin particularly Burnett and Polk Counties and gained strength, enough so that the NWS issued a warning. The storm produced very heavy torrential rain and very gusty winds across Polk County, and much of Western Barron County. There were two reports of funnel clouds, one from St Croix Falls and another 5 miles north of Amery, but these did not develop into tornado’s. The storm weakened significantly as it pushed southeast into Dunn county shortly after. Winds near or over 40MPH were reported in Cumberland, Amery as well as my location. There was no damaged reported, in fact the damage that I have seen around my location is the only damage that is known with this storm.
Area second storms
After the 1st storms passed through skies cleared and it became hot, the atmosphere became unstable just in time for another round of strong storms to push through during the late evening hours. Much like the first brought heavy rain and gusty winds, with the strongest cell following a path nearly the same the 1st one, accept it was slightly more to the Northeast, This is why some areas ended up getting two storms in one day. There were no reports to the SPC for damage, but my friend who volunteers for Turtle Lake Fire Department said there was a tree down from wind which fell on a power line which caused a fire. The fire was put out safely.
Clayton/my yard Storm Coverage.
Video of the storm from my aunts lawn July 30th 2011
1st storm
I begun the day looking at the radar. I saw storms to the Northwest, but I was thinking the threat of strong storms would not be until evening, enough so that I went to my aunts for a day of gardening, after a couple hours of gardening in hot temps around 85, the skies darkened so I went inside my aunts house to check on the radar I could see storms moving towards our area from the northwest. We tried to get a few more minutes of gardening in but eventually had to go indoors due to increasing lightning, where I staid during the duration of the storm which is 1 mile from my house. First came wind before the storm which really cooled things off, then very heavy rain and lightning came, then there was another much stronger burst of wind from the NNW during the heavy rain this one made the tall trees at my aunts yard sway back and forth, then it slowed down as rain continued, My gauge read 39MPH when I got home, but what happened next in the storm was fairly odd to me, near the storms back side where the rain was almost over, the wind switched from a northerly direction to a southerly one, before finally switching westerly as rain ended.
Yard flooding July 30th 2011
After the storm passed, my aunt and I noticed her small trees were bent slightly to one side, and her yard was flooded in a lot of places, My gauge said 0.88″ of rain fell in a 30 minute time span, and this on top of significant rains that fell in July caused some flooding, Needless to say gardening was postponed the rest of the day.
Tree down along side of the road on 70th ave
The strong NNW burst of wind was strong enough to take down a couple of sporadic trees down around the area, pictured above is a poplar tree which was snapped, Other damage in Clayton I saw which was a bit more significant then pictured above included a large section of a Sugar Maple which broke off of a tree on the south side of down, barely missing a vehicle
Large potted plant tipped over.
The storms effect in my yard was very minor, The only things that were seen was some branches down from the Willow, as well as from the pines. One thing notable was this large banana which was tipped over. This is the first time this tipped over in a storm, it weighs 10 pounds so it took some wind to push this over. A lot of my other smaller potted plants were tipped over as well.
2nd storm
Shelf cloud lit up by lightning during the night of July 30th
temperatures quickly rose back into the mid 80s just in time for more storms to develop along the same front, at my location the storm had a pretty pronounced shelf cloud along with frequent close lightning, heavy rain, and gusty winds, but the winds in this storm were not as strong as the first storm, only 32MPH. By the end of the day the rain gauge accumulated to 1.12″ bringing July’s total to over 8.50″
Storm Reports/Wind gusts
1st storm
Amery 43MPH
Cumberland 44MPH
Clayton 39MPH, Large tree branch down, with another tree down in the area, lots of yard flooding from heavy rain.
2nd storm
Turtle Lake, Tree fell into power line and caused a fire.