Saturday’s storm brings hail and heavy rain to the Lake District – Brainerd Dispatch

BRAINERD – Hail measuring up to an inch in diameter near Lake Shore and heavy rain accompanied a thunderstorm Saturday evening, September 17, as it moved through the Brainerd Lakes area.

Weather watchers offered several reports of hail in the area, much of it concentrated in the Nisswa/Pequot Lakes areas to the north. Localized rainfall totals ranging from 1.85 inches about 3 miles north of Pequot to 2.96 inches just north of Nisswa were also recorded, according to reports collected by the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network, or CoCoRaHS.

“We had showers and thunderstorms that developed west of the area towards Fergus Falls through the Bemidji area, and these moved east in the evening into the Brainerd Lakes area. “, said Kevin Huyck, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, during a telephone interview Sunday.

Large hail, damaging winds and a small chance of tornadoes are possible with any severe storms developing, the National Weather Service warned Friday afternoon.

“Some of these storms appeared to be capable of producing large hail, and there was potential for wind damage as well, so those were things we were paying close attention to as the storms developed. “, said Huyck on Sunday.

The Duluth National Weather Service issued six severe thunderstorm warnings, focusing primarily on the threat of hail and wind, leading to Saturday’s thunderstorms in the area.

“There was enough twist in the atmosphere where we were also concerned about tornadoes,” Huyck said. “And several of those storms, particularly in the Pequot and Brainerd lakes area in the southern part of Cass County, showed evidence of rotation on radar.”

Huyck said the National Weather Service in Duluth received a few reports and photographs of funnel clouds, but no reports of actual tornado touchdowns.

Beyond the one-inch-diameter hail reported at 8:20 p.m. in Lake Shore, other observers reported 0.75-inch hail at Pequot Lakes and 0.25-inch hail at Breezy Point, Jenkins , Crosslake and near Swanburg following the storm.

“We have received no weather-related calls, no damage that we are aware of,” Crow Wing County Sheriff’s Sgt. Aaron Cronquist said Sunday. “I mean there are a few trees, but that’s normal, so no reports of damage or flooding from our end.”

According to the National Weather Service in Duluth, heavy rains over the past few days have caused river levels to rise, pools of water in low-lying areas and minor washouts.

“The fact that there were fewer storms meant that the risk of flash flooding ended up being lower than we expected, and so we didn’t hear any reports of flooding,” Huyck said. .

Huyck said he’s seen reports of rain accumulation ranging from 0.75 inches to 2 inches in some places since thunderstorms on Saturday.

“The most intense parts of the thunderstorms were relatively narrow, and so if a person was directly below one of these thunderstorms, they might see higher precipitation,” Huyck said. “But on the fringe, the storms weren’t as intense and the rainfall wasn’t as intense.”

Brainerd Lakes Regional Airport has so far recorded 0.97 inches of total rainfall accumulation for the month of September, which was just below the monthly normal of 1.5 inches.

“The severe thunderstorm warnings we issued last night (Saturday) which would have included the Pequot Lakes area mentioned a risk of hail of 1 inch to inch and a half or the size of a ping pong ball” , Huyck said.

• 2.96 inches of precipitation, 1.9 miles north of Nisswa.
• 2.25 inches, 1.8 miles south of Breezy Point.
• 2.16 inches, 2.6 miles ESE of Pequot Lakes.
• 1.96 inches, 0.9 miles west-northwest of Breezy Point.
• 1.86 inches, 1.2 miles northeast of Breezy Point.
• 1.35 inches, 6.1 miles northwest of Trommald.
• 1.03 inches, 8.4 miles northwest of Aitkin.
• 0.63 inch, 1.8 miles east-northeast of Lake Shore.
• 0.54 inches, 4.2 miles east-northeast of Nisswa.
• 0.5 inches, 2.8 miles south-southeast of Ironton.

Source: Community Collaboration Network on Rain, Hail and Snow.

FRANK LEE can be reached at 218-855-5863 or

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