Shelf cloud on southern side of 1st line at my yard July 1st 2011
Many people will unfortunately spend Independence Day Weekend cleaning up after multiple waves, and lines storms that brought extremely strong winds after a very hot and steamy day. One area of storms left major damage across widespread parts of the area. An area that was especially hit hard was Burnett and Washburn counties. Significant county wide strait line winds damage was seen, damage of some sort was reported in every community in Burnett County, with some areas seeing damage so extreme that entire woods, and residential tree lots were leveled completely. Grantsburg, Trade Lake, Webster, and Minong seem to be the hardest hit communities, with reports of power outages and structural damage to homes and business. The damage was significant enough that the Red Cross responded to Burnett and Washburn Counties and after the storms hit, county officials were calling for assistance from nearby county officials to help cut down trees and clear roads.
Damage reports plotted on a map with explanation lines.
The widespread and damaging storms first started in South Dakota and moved Northeast cutting a path of severe damage across all of Minnesota before it approached Western Burnett county. At the same time, spotty cells were forming northeast of this area in Burnett county which moved north. The main squall line impacted Burnett and Northern Washburn counties, and sent a very severe winds of 70 to 80MPH, this caused widespread tree damage, especially in Trade Lake, Grantsburg, Siren, Danbury and Webster East to Minong Spooner and Trego. Some areas were hit with extreme damage. One report in Grantsburg mentioned that an entire 3.5 acer yard lost nearly all of it’s trees in the storm. NWS Duluth even mentioned that it was likely there was spotty area of extreme down burst winds up to 100MPH near Grantsburg, Danbury and Webster, shown as the pink reports above. There was different cell that developed into south of the Burnett & Washburn County cells that protruded south through to Southern Polk and Barron Counties. These storms caused widespread less severe winds up to 60MPH in Milltown, St Croix Falls, Frederic and Cumberland, where lots of trees and some power lines were reported down. These are shown as the yellow reports on the map. South of there where the storm was reduced to just a shelf cloud with very strong winds and little rain caused spotty tree damage near Amery, Somserset, Clayton and areas east, These are the green reports above. The final squall line formed right along the cold front in southern Minnesota and moved across all areas pretty This squall line was less severe, but still caused very windy conditions in St Croix, Polk and Barron and Dunn counties. Some spotty damage was reported in Western St Croix County and Southern Dunn county.
Clayton + My location storm coverage.
Video of the July 1st gust front winds.
Large branch down on a Camper on Clayton Ave.
This was a large branch which snapped off Maple and fell onto this camper, fortunately, The camper did not appear to have damage. I estimate the branch was at least 10 inches in diameter.
Large tree branch broken off 1 mile south of Clayton
This photo was taken on aunt and uncles lawn, they lost a 5 inch diameter branch off there small crab apple tree, which took out 1/3 of this tree. This was later cut off and hauled off by me after this picture was taken.
Grantsburg, Sigificant damage, Power Out, many large 50 year old Trees Down, Roads impassible.
5 miles W Webster Significant damage, multiple Trees Down, Roof and siding damage.
Trade Lake, Numerous trees down, boats flipped and blown onto shore.
Webb Lake, Many large trees down.
Milltown, Wind Damage.
Cumberland 62MPH wind gust.
Spooner, Large billboard blown down.
Minong, Roof blown off business.
Damage reports from second wave.
Somserset, Isolated trees down.
Eau Galle Tree down.
Hello , my brothers are at their cabin off of marksville road in Danbury aprox. 7 miles from casino.approximate 3 miles from river. They have trees down everywhere and are unable to get out of their driveway, I talked to them at 10pm, briefly until the phone ran out if batteries, they seem to be stranded, I would l
Like to head up from st. Paul to help them out, do you think I could even get close to them to help? Any info would be greatly appreciated… Jerry @ [email protected]….thank you.
Hi – We just purchased a home outside Webster. We are commuting there every other day. We were shocked to see the trees on Smith Road outside Webster/Siren. We saw a 40 acre (approx.) parcel where the trees are ‘snapped’ in 1/2. It is amazing. We had about 20 trees down at least. Our house an pole barn were left untouched. It is as though the winds traveled around both these building.
Hello Jan, The Damage up in that areas is truely a chillingly amazing experince. I’ve heard everything from entire yards being sheered off of it’s full grown trees, to entire woods flattened. I’m sorry to hear about your trees. Being a gardener, I know it’s sad to loosed mature trees, but I am so glad to hear your home and pole barn was untouched!