Extreame wind damage reported in Burnett and Washburn Counties- Red Cross Responded. Spotty less severe damage in other areas, including in my area.

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.

Shelf Cloud passing over my house July 1st from 1st storm

This section of the post will focus on damage around my area. The storm that protruded south of Burnett County into Polk County effected my area and sent very strong winds ahead of the storm in a direction from the northwest to the southeast. It was signaled by a very intense and threatening looking shelf cloud that quickly passed overhead followed by strong gusty WNW winds. I estimate the winds between 40 and 45MPH at my location based on nearby damage. My gauge recorded 31MPH even behind the protection of a tree, but the number seemed to be lowered a bit because of it. Nearby Amery had a 42MPH. These winds did cause some damage around, but we were fortunate that it was just spotty tree damage in Clayton. My yard it's self escaped most damage, and only had some minor branches and leaves, one of my small new trees that took the brunt of the winds on the west side of my lawn was blown over pretty bad and had to be tied up afterwards. One thing that was interesting in my area was the temperature drop from 90.F, after a high of 99.F to 72.F in just minutes. There was really no rain to speak of in this storm only 0.09, which came from storms that came after the one with shelf cloud.





Video of the July 1st gust front winds.

In the video above very strong winds can be seen, especially near the middle of the video. As I looked back at it I was surprised at how far the small tree near the ground was bending in the winds, but was glad this fairly new tree held up.

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.

Area Damage reports from 1st significant squall line

Grantsburg, Sigificant damage, Power Out, many large 50 year old Trees Down, Roads impassible.

Grantsburg, 3.5 acer yard lost nearly every tree, including mature oaks.

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.

Danbury, Significant Damage, Trees blown down falling onto cars and homes.

1 mile W Danbury, Intense downburst winds-Entire Woods flattened

5 miles W Amery 68MPH Wind gust

Clayton, Large 10 inch diameter branch fallen onto camper in town

1 mile S Clayton, 5 inch diameter branch down

Milltown, Wind Damage.

Polk County Report of trees and powerlines down in the Southeastern part of the county.

Barron County Report of Trees and powerlines down in the southern part of the county.

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.