Power Outage in Mankato, MN

Calls to dispatch centers revealed multiple reports of iced powerlines leaning, but no outages. A CoCoRAHs observer measured 0.25 of ice on upwind side of rain gage, and another mentioned quarter inch of sleet/ice.

A few trees and power lines were blown down in the city of Mankato. A few trees landed on houses and damaged them.

A few trees and power lines were blown down in the city of Mankato. A few trees landed on houses and damaged them.

A few trees and power lines were blown down near the city of Rapidan.

A roof was blown off and power lines were down in the town of Cambria.

A storm survey concluded that severe straight-line winds caused damage to wooden electrical poles, trees, and power lines north of Mapleton along Highway 22 to 179th Street. One home north of Beauford sustained minor damage to some shingles.

Power lines were blown down across Highway 169, near Mankato, Minnesota.

Barn walls collapsed and a garage was pushed off its foundation. Power poles were snapped and multiple trees uprooted.

Minnesota Vikings training camp tents and crowd control fences blown over. Eight inch diameter tree limbs severed off tree at Mankato State University campus. In addition, several other 2 to 4 inch diameter tree branches severed at MSU. Power reported out in some areas near MSU. Three very large trees also reported toppled in Mankato.

A band of rain and freezing rain lifted up across southern Minnesota on the morning of January 03, 2023. There were several pictures of icing on social media. Call to dispatchers verified a few counties in the ice storm warning. Those that didn't have significant impacts were a couple degrees away from a disaster according to one Emergency Manager.||Below are a couple of the noteworthy reports:|Blue Earth County - a couple calls of powerlines iced and leaning. A CoCoRAHs observer measured 0.25 of ice on upwind side of rain gage, and another mentioned quarter inch of sleet/ice.|Faribault County - A few power outages and slippery roads.|Martin County - A few power outages, and at least 1/4 inch of ice on a fence.

Severe thunderstorms that developed early Saturday morning across northern South Dakota, moved eastward over west-central Minnesota. Several clusters of storms developed as the main system continued to propagate to the east-southeast during the morning across southern Minnesota. Most of the storms were pulse type and only produced isolated large hail or severe wind gusts. However, a couple of the storms managed to organize across Renville and Sibley Counties of southern Minnesota, and produced up to 3 inch diameter hail near Gibbon. In addition to the hail, severe wind gusts of 70 mph were reported at the Olivia airport, along with several large trees blown down. Another cluster of storms managed to organize near Mankato, to Kenyon by the late morning. The worst damage occurred in Kenyon where uprooted trees caused power outages in the town. Severe storms developed later in the evening and produced a 66 mph wind gust at the Waseca airport, and destroyed a barn northeast of Bixby in Steele County.

Thunderstorms developed during the afternoon of Monday, June 12th in far southern Minnesota. These storms moved northeast and produced short-lived bow echoes in Blue Earth County, then east-northeast into Waseca, Steele, Rice and Goodhue Counties. Measured wind gusts of 58 to 62 mph occurred from the town of Morristown to the southwest part of Faribault. There were several trees blown down from Morristown, northeast to the city of Faribault. In addition, there were sporadic power outages and large amounts of blown down power lines and tree limbs.

A complex of thunderstorms that developed from morning convection across west central Minnesota, moved southeast across southwest and into south central Minnesota during the afternoon. The storms intensified north of Springfield, Minnesota and races east-southeast across south central Minnesota. Several reports of measured high winds, trees blown down, and power outages from around Springfield, east to Lake Crystal, Mankato, Waseca, and north of Albert Lea. A brief tornado also occurred near Hollandale with damage to the northwest and south side of town.

Thunderstorms developed after sunrise in far southwest Minnesota, and moved rapidly east-northeast across southern Minnesota, and into west central Wisconsin. It produced occasional large hail, brief severe wind gusts and torrential rainfall. The largest hail stone was ping pong size, east of St. James. Some structural damage occurred in St. James to a mobile home. A few trees and power lines were also blown down across Le Sueur County.

A large complex of thunderstorms developed across North Dakota during the early morning of Friday, June 17th. These storms moved eastward across eastern North Dakota and produced a large area of severe winds and hail. ||As the storms moved into northwest Minnesota Friday morning, a small line started to form and move southeast toward central Minnesota. Several reports of large hail occurred in Todd County before moving southward before noon. During the afternoon, a broken line of storms continued to form south and west across southern Minnesota. ||The storms in the afternoon become more multicellular as they expanded further to the south and east toward the Minnesota/Iowa border by early evening. Due to the multicellular nature of the storms, downburst winds and large hail were localized. In central Minnesota, the main damage was associated with large hail, up to golf ball size at times. As they moved farther south, significant wind damage occurred, especially across southern Redwood, northern Blue Earth and western Nicollet Counties where local farms and homes were damaged. By the early evening, damage was near the Iowa border where trees and power lines were blown down. One of the storms caused a semi-truck to blow off the road on I-90 near Fairmont.||Eventually these storms weakened by the evening, but several rounds of torrential rain caused significant flooding to develop, especially near New Ulm and Courtland. |Near New Ulm, a railroad crossing was washed out on Pineapple Lane. Two roads in Courtland were washed out by heavy rains Friday night. These roads were about a mile west of 491st Street, and 506th Street was closed through 511th Street due to flooding. Apple Road, south of Highway 68, was impassable due to a mudslide. An unofficial report of 7 inches of rain fell near Courtland in less than 2 hours.

An outflow boundary from previous morning thunderstorms across western Minnesota, ignited a broken line of severe thunderstorms southwest of New Ulm, to northwest of Mankato, Friday afternoon, June 10th. ||Clusters of storms moved east-northeast toward St. Peter, Faribault, Northfield and Red Wing, and produced numerous reports of downed trees and power lines. ||One of the worst counties affected by these storms was Goodhue, which had three distinct severe storms move across the county from 2:30 PM CST to 4:00 PM CST. The city of Bellechester, and Hay Creek, Belvidere, and Goodhue Townships were most affected by the severe storms. The first storm affected mainly the far northeast part of the county between Red Wing and Wacouta. The second moved across the southern part of the county with a few downed trees noted. The third moved across far southern Goodhue county and produced the most damage near Bellechester. ||During the height of the storm, the Minnesota Valley Electric Cooperative (MVEC) had several thousand people without power around Le Center, Montgomery and Lexington in central Le Sueur county. Xcel Energy initially had 30,000 without power, and had a crew of 150 members working on the outages during the height of the storm. ||These storms also moved into west central Wisconsin where additional reports of downed trees and power lines were noted. ||There were several weather sensors across southern Minnesota that reported wind gusts of 40 to 55 mph, and two that measured above severe limits. The highest measured wind gust (Minnesota Department of Transportation Wind Sensor) was south of Cannon Falls, on Highway 52, which had a gust of 75 mph.||There was an outflow boundary ahead of the main thunderstorm complex that caused a few high wind gusts above 55 mph. One of the wind gusts occurred at the Waseca airport which measured a gust of 51 knots. A local cemetery had damage that was associated with the strong winds.