Power Outage in Devils Lake, ND

A lightning strike caused power outages to sections of Devils Lake. Some of the electrical outages continued into the next morning.

About 50 trees were snapped off or uprooted in the Lakewood Subdivision playground area. Power lines were also torn down.

Trees were uprooted in Devils Lake by the strong wind, with some falling on power lines. Scattered power outages were reported. A semi-trailer, not attached to a cab, was flipped over. Several city signs were twisted or broken off. The strong wind broke off a large tree branch next to a gas station, which fell on the store and punctured a hole through its roof. This also cut some of the station's electricity.

The Garske elevator was heavily damaged. Trees and power lines were down all around.

Street flooding occurred due to heavy rainfall and power outages at sewer lift stations.

Power outages were reported by law enforcement.

A tree branch was blown down onto a car, breaking its windshield. Another tree fell on a garage and another tree fell on a house, knocking out its power.

Numerous power poles and billboards were damaged by the wind.

Strong winds hit the city of Devils Lake, toppling power poles, trees, signs, and light signals. Debris from a roof struck and injured a pedestrian. The 96 knot wind gust was measured at the Law Enforcement Center. A 40x60 foot steel building was thrown 150 feet onto a passing vehicle. The motorist inside was not discovered until 12 hours later. It took an additional hour to free the 48 year-old man from the vehicle. A mobile home was also overturned. 250 homes in the city were damaged, leading the governor to declare a state of emergency.

68 consecutive power poles were damaged by the high winds across the Devils Lake area. This amounted to about 8 miles of line. Some of the damaged poles ended up on the bottom of Devils Lake, as the lines cut across several bays.

As a surface low pressure system tracked from eastern South Dakota on the afternoon of the 10th into southwestern Ontario by the morning of the 11th, a variety of weather occurred over North Dakota and Minnesota. The warmest temperatures on the afternoon of the 10th were over west central Minnesota, with highs in the middle 40s. Meanwhile, temperatures stayed in the upper 20s over most of northeast North Dakota. Several bands of accumulating freezing rain moved across northeast North Dakota during the first half of the day of the 10th, in addition to several inches of light snow. Some accumulations of freezing rain also fell in the extreme northwest corner of Minnesota. By the afternoon into the evening of the 10th, a very thin band of heavy snow set up along a Bismarck to Knox to Rock Lake line, where 12 to 17 inches of snow fell in about a 20 mile wide band. Further east, the freezing rain slowly transitioned over to light snow as well that evening. The ice caused tree damage and power outages in some areas along with hazardous driving conditions.

When the wind switched to the north and northwest, power problems only got worse. Blizzard conditions also developed. Many roads north and west of Devils Lake were closed to travel. U.S. Highway 2 was closed west of Devils Lake and U.S. Highway 281 was closed north of Churchs Ferry. During the peak of the blizzard, a ND DOT RWIS weather sensor just south of Devils Lake reported 60 mph wind gusts. It took longest to restore power to the Bisbee, Mylo, and Perth areas. In the area around Perth, 26 power poles were knocked down. 1500 residents of the Spirit Lake Nation also briefly lost power. One rural electric power restoration crew was briefly stranded at a farmstead in rural Cavalier County while checking power lines. Benson and Towner Counties were included in a Presidential Disaster Declaration.

An early season winter storm began as an area of surface low pressure near Colorado. The low tracked to near Sioux Falls, SD, by tuesday evening (December 4th). Then, the low lifted nearly straight north, reaching the Fargo, ND, area by mid-morning on the 5th. The low continued to lift to the north, reaching Reynolds, ND, by late afternoon. The low then began to shift east, passing near Bemidji by late evening on the 5th. The storm system brought a variety of weather to the region. Very strong northeast winds occurred while the surface low was in North Dakota, then winds turned more north-northwest as the low passed into Minnesota. Temperatures were fairly warm initially, so the precipitation began as rain. However, as temperatures dropped, the precipitation changed to freezing rain and then to heavy, wet snow. The heaviest snow fell across northern Towner and northern Cavalier Counties, where Sarles reported 14 inches and Calvin and Munich reported 10 inches. Lower amounts were reported to the south and east, with Leeds at 8 inches, Langdon at 7 inches, Walhalla at 6 inches, Starkweather at 5 inches, and Cavalier and Devils Lake at 4 inches. The heavy, wet snow bogged down power lines and caused sporadic line breaks.

A surface low tracked across northern South Dakota, southeast North Dakota, and into northern Minnesota. A strong thermal gradient set up across eastern ND and the northwest quarter of MN. Temperatures rose into the lower 80s across southeast ND and west central MN (with low 60 dew points) by the afternoon of the 11th. Afternoon highs on the 11th along the Canadian border only peaked out in the upper 30s and lower 40s. Strong south-southeast winds surged plenty of moisture into the system. Severe weather broke out by early evening (11th) over southeast ND and it progressed north and east. The largest hail and scattered tornadoes formed in the four county corners of Clay, western Becker, western Otter Tail, and Wilkin. Training thunderstorms along this four county corridor dropped heavy amounts of rain (4-6 inches), causing some flash flooding across the Barnesville, Cormorant, Lawndale, Pelican Rapids, and Detroit Lakes areas. Streets were flooded and barricaded in the larger towns and lakes rose over docks. There were also reports of stalled cars due to high water levels on roadways. As temperatures fell to the middle to upper 20s overnight into the morning of the 12th, accumulating ice and snow occurred in counties along the Canadian border in northeast ND. One-half to one inch of ice accumulated on exposed surfaces, wrecking havoc on rural electrical lines and trees. Roughly 1200 customers in Cavalier and Ramsey counties lost power. As estimated 750 power poles were downed, causing $1.5 million in damages. Strong winds behind the cold front helped cause a domino-effect in snapping stretches of power poles. Power restoration efforts took up to 2 weeks for some customers. Most power pole damage occurred east of highway 1 from from Canada to Fairdale. Schools in Munich were closed early on the 12th, due to the power problems. An official from Cavalier county estimated 25 percent of the trees in the county were damaged or destroyed. Emerging crops also were damaged. Long duration county and river flooding also became an issue across extreme northwest MN, with 3-6 inches of rain also falling in these areas toward midnight on the 11th. Flood warnings were issued for Roseau and Marshall counties, the Roseau River at Roseau, and the Two Rivers River at Hallock. The city of Roseau was only hit by record flooding two years ago, in 2002.

A surface low dropped southeast out of Canada to the North Dakota and Minnesota border, bringing the first outbreak of winter weather to the Devils Lake region. As the temperature fell on the back side of the low, rain changed to freezing rain and then to snow. A significant amount of ice accumulated on power poles and lines from western Cavalier county into northern Ramsey county. As winds gusted up to 35 mph, a total of 50 power poles were snapped from Wales to Starkweather. This caused several hours of power loss to communities along this route. Milton and Osnabrock were without power for 12 hours and were the last towns to have power restored. Several schools closed on the 7th and 8th. 9.8 inches of snow were measured in Devils Lake, with many 6 inch amounts reported across the area.