Strong winds cause thousands of power outages across Twin Cities

Winds gusting to more than 60 miles per hour over the past 24 hours have brought down trees and power lines across the metro area Wednesday morning.

At 8:30 a.m., about 4,000 customers in the metro were without power, a spokesman for Xcel Energy said.

Outages were scattered across the Twin Cities, with about 2,000 outages reported in the west metro and 1,800 in the east metro, said spokesman Matt Lindstrom.

That number is down from 95,000 outages reported Monday night and Tuesday in Xcel's service area, which includes much of Minnesota and parts of Wisconsin. By Wednesday morning 85,000 of those customers were back on line, Lindstrom said.

High winds were the culprit in most of the outages as tree branches fell onto power lines, Lindstrom said.

Overnight and into Wednesday morning, winds howled across the metro and southern Minnesota. The highest gust occurred in Fairmont at 63 miles per hour, the National Weather Service said.

Other gusts between 7 a.m. Tuesday and 7 a.m. Wednesday included 61 miles per hour in Ellendale, Minn., 60 at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, 58 in Crystal and 56 in Robbinsdale and Eden Prairie, 57 in Richfield, and 54 in Coon Rapids and Rogers.

A wind advisory for wind gusts in excess of 45 mph remains in effect until noon, when breezy conditions should start to subside, the National Weather Service said.

Tim Harlow • 612-673-7768