Cleanup, assessment begins after storms hit the metro and southern Minnesota

National Weather Service teams fanned out across areas to the south of the Twin Cites Wednesday to survey damage delivered by powerful storms that brought heavy rains, hail, high winds and possible tornadoes Tuesday afternoon and evening.

A line of damage was reported from Prior Lake to Apple Valley to Farmington, where a twister may have touched down during the storms that felled trees, snapped power lines and left some roads under water.

Winds gusting as high as 85 mph ripped a roof of a barn in Union Hill, an unincorporated town just west of New Prague. Power poles were snapped in Henderson and Belle Plaine. Trees were felled in New Prague, Northfield, Burnsville, Rosemount and Jordan, said Caleb Grunzke, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Chanhassen.

Damage reports were still coming in Wednesday morning, Grunzke said.

Winds topped 70 mph in Chatfield in southern Minnesota and gusts over 60 mph were reported in Prior Lake, Rochester, Morristown, Oronoco and Clara City.

Tornado warnings for the Red Wing area and in Goodhue and Dakota counties were issued during Tuesday's storms, but no official confirmation of tornadoes were reported. The weather service team will look into a report of a twister that may have touched down in the town of Hartland in southern Minnesota, Grunzke said.

At one point, more than 5,000 Xcel Energy customers were without power, but most were back online Wednesday morning, the company reported.

Hail 1.75 inches in diameter fell in Silver Lake and Lester Prairie, just west of the metro area in McLeod County. Hail about the size of Ping-Pong balls was reported in New Prague in Scott County, the weather service said.

Heavy rain dropped 1 to 2 inches of rain in a little over an hour across the south metro, too much for storm drains to absorb at times. That led to street flooding, particularly in Lakeville where several cars had to be towed from standing water on Dodd Road.

Patchy fog gave way to sunny skies Wednesday through Saturday with highs in the 80s until the next chance of thunderstorms on Saturday night and Sunday, the weather service said.

Tim Harlow • 612-673-7768