MANKATO — It was perfect timing for National Severe Weather Awareness Week.
That’s the sentiment shared by officials from the city of St. Peter, the National Weather Service and agencies that helped respond to the round of severe weather southern Minnesota experienced Monday night.
“This is all really because of southward moving cold front that we had stall out over the southern part of the state and low pressure down to Nebraska was spinning about, and it brought in some much warmer and moist air right into southern Minnesota. And that kind of acted as the powder keg to get everything going yesterday evening,” said Ryan Dunleavy, a meteorologist with the NWS.
That system brought in rain, hail and tornadoes across southern Minnesota. St. Peter City Administrator Todd Prafke said the hail fell for about an hour between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m., and while not much damage to city property was reported, there was some localized street flooding.
“We did call out some of the streets crew, and we had a street sweeper going to some of the areas that were a little bit more of a problem to help clean out those storm sewer areas so that the water could flow more appropriately,” Prafke said.
As that hail wrapped up, 38 miles to the south, Amboy was dealing with a tornado.
The NWS reported a tornado touchdown for “at least seven minutes near Amboy,” the Star Tribune reported. No damage was evident Monday night.
That threat was combined with high-speed winds — upward of 60 mph in some parts of the area such as Lake Crystal — and hail that could reach between 2 and 4 inches in diameter falling across the region in cities such as Lake Crystal, Faribault and Morristown.
“That’s pretty significant for this area of the country. That’s more something that you’d see down in the central plains … like Oklahoma, Texas and so on,” Dunleavy said. “So that’s not as common (of an) occurrence up this way.”
Now, the cleanup begins.
Prafke says St. Peter is aware of contractors going door to door offering services to fix roofing or broken windows, noting one resident had been approached at least three times before lunch. In St. Peter, he says, such contractors are required to have a peddler’s license. If they don’t, they may not be legitimate.
“Folks are required to have a permit to peddle and what that means is that they pass a background check and they have a certain level of insurance that they’re required to have,” Prafke said. “(The contractors) do get a placard that they’re supposed to carry with them, and then (residents can) certainly call down to the community development office and we will tell them whether (the contractors) do or do not (have a permit).”
The next storm system the NWS is tracking could hit the area Friday night. The good news? It’s not expected to bring any tornadoes. The bad? It could bring snow.
“This would be kind of a dynamic system in itself where we get severe weather on the front end, potentially followed by — I hate to say at this time of year — some wintry mix,” Dunleavy said. “We should have greater confidence Wednesday and then into Thursday … we’ll have a better idea (of) what we could expect in terms of impacts.”