Severe storms overnight on Saturday into Sunday dropped large hail, downed trees and knocked out power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses across Minnesota.
Line crews were making progress on repairing outages — but Xcel Energy and other utilities reported more than 37,000 customers remained without power as of 6 p.m. Sunday, and the National Weather Service predicted another round of showers and storms overnight into Monday.
A line of intense storms formed Saturday night near Moorhead and Pelican Rapids and moved southeast, paralleling the Interstate 94 corridor. The storms reached the Twin Cities during the early morning hours.
The Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport reported a wind gust of 62 mph just after 1 a.m. Weather spotters reported hailstones larger than baseballs near Monticello, and the size of golf balls in Big Lake and Oakdale.
The National Weather Service received reports of trees and large branches down in Pelican Rapids, Long Prairie, Grey Eagle, Sartell, Rockville, Annandale, Buffalo, St. Michael, Minneapolis, Edina and Lakeville.
A large tree downed by the storms crushed a car along a street in St. Paul. There were no immediate reports of injuries from the severe weather.
As the storms continued moving southeast, torrential rain led to flash flooding in parts of western Wisconsin.
Power outages
As of daybreak Sunday, Xcel Energy reported more than 70,000 of its Minnesota customers without power in the Twin Cities metro area and St. Cloud, but by early evening, that number was down to 37,000, mostly in the west metro.
Lake Region Electric Cooperative reported outages affecting more than 10,000 of its customers in Otter Tail County. The utility said its crews were finding not just downed lines, but also power poles that were broken by the strong winds.
“Restoration will take time as crews place poles, hang wires and clear vegetation,” Lake Region officials reported Sunday morning. They urged people to stay away from downed lines.
Otter Tail Power Company and Connexus Energy were among the other utilities responding to significant outages on Sunday morning.
The number of homes and businesses without power dropped through the morning Sunday as line crews made repairs, but there was a lot of work left to be done.
Tornado reports
Earlier Saturday, other storms in the region produced reports of tornadoes.
A trained weather spotter reported a tornado in southern Minnesota, between Medford and Kenyon, at about 5 p.m. It only caused minor crop damage, the NWS said.
And weather spotters reported a tornado in eastern North Dakota, west of Wahpeton, at about 7:30 p.m.
Additional storms
NWS forecasts predicted additional severe storms Sunday night through Monday morning, making their way to Wisconsin by early afternoon. The rest of the week looks mostly sunny, with highs in the 70s.
