Photo of a storm front, This photo was taken between Turtle Lake and Clayton in Barron County.

Scattered Strong storms produced hail and Extremely heavy torrential rains across some parts of the area today. One storm became Briefly severe over Clayton, Some areas picked up over an inch of rain in today’s storms. The first Thunderstorm of the day formed just to the northwest of Turtle Lake then drifted south, This storm produce Nickel Size hail with some larger hailstones which covered the ground white just to the south of Turtle Lake. Shortly after a new storm formed along the southern edge of this storm. This storm Impacted the Clayton area, and briefly became Severe producing Large Hail to the sized of quarters at my house. Then later in the evening another strong storm had formed in Northern St Croix County and pulsed just south of Deer Park.

Southern Turtle Lake area storm

Hail covering the road about 1 mile south of Turtle Lake

Me and a buddy of mine were watching this storm get real strong just to the northwest of Turtle Lake, so me and my dad decided to do and chase it, We drove to Turtle Lake and parked in Becker’s Super value parking lot to watch. After while we did see some Extremely heavy rain and dime sized hail, but I thought it would have been better. Shortly after the dime sized hail, I got a text message from my friend telling me storms were drifting towards Clayton, So we turned around and started heading towards Clayton.
About 1 mile south of Turtle Lake, I was amazed to see that we had ran into an area where hail was covering the ground, I mean the ground was completely White with hail! Most of this hail was dime to nickel sized, but Some hailstones definitely could have been a larger sized before we got there. as we were driving, I also seen many small branches and leaves covering lawns and driveways in this area. So Minor damage in this area, I snapped the two photos above as we drove passed were trying to get home. What turned out happening was the hail core has drifted just south of Turtle Lake away from where we were.

Clayton area brief Severe storm, and the storm which impacted my house.

Here is a video I took of the hail falling at our back porch, Most were nickel sized and smaller but one hailstone I measured was quarter sized.

Well we drove though a lot very heavy rain but we had finally made it home, Hail started to hit our car less then a block north of my house. We made up our driveway just in time! I ran inside with my camera and no more then about 5 seconds later I saw a quarter sized hailstone fall in our yard right next to the door, I picked it up and then more hail and Extremely Heavy rain started falling. I was surprised because I was not expecting rain at my house, much less Hail! Apparently A new storm had formed right along the one south of Turtle Lake and it and pulsed breifly severe limits right over Clayton. and produced nickel to dime sized hail at my house on the Southeast side of Clayton, I did measure one hailstone of 1.00 inch which is why it was considered Severe.
A lily in my garden battered up by Hail.

Some flowers in my garden did get damaged by the dime to quarter sized hail, and I did see leaves and seeds getting ripped from the trees. but nothing too major, This storm was not nearly as damaging as the storm south of Turtle Lake. Then got much more hail in that area. We did end up getting some Extremely heavy rainfall here we got 0.80″ of rain in about 20 minutes!

I would also like to mention the amazing Temperature drop this storm caused, It was 80.F before the storm hit and after the storm passed the temp had dropped to 60.F so we had a 20 degree drop! you could see lots of fog coming out of the woods and on roads because of the fast drop in temp. So all in all a Wacky day of weather, and chasing for me.

Reports

Polk County Clayton 1 inch hail “hail stripping some leaves off trees”