A large swath of northern Minnesota is without power Saturday morning after a destructive storm ripped through the area with heavy winds, hail and intense lightning.
Tornadoes were reported Friday night that formed in western North Dakota and moved east, killing three people in Enderlin, N.D., just an hour east of the Fargo-Moorhead area, which experienced flash flooding, officials said.
Cass County Sheriff Jesse Jahner said at a news conference Saturday that two men and a woman were killed at two separate locations in the town of Enderlin late Friday.
As the severe storm with winds over 100 miles per hour pushed east, it hit the surrounding Detroit Lakes area before causing significant damage in Bemidji, which is reporting widespread power outages.
“It was a long night,” Timothy Lynch, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Grand Forks, said Saturday morning. Lynch said survey damage crews are in North Dakota for now, but may head to Bemidji to see if there are confirmed tornado touchdowns.
He said that there were rotations in that area but that mostly it experienced straight line winds causing “substantial damage.” With gusts up to 112 mph, he said, that is suspect for potential tornadoes.
The atmosphere is essentially catching its breath Saturday to unleash again on Sunday, when there is a higher likelihood of seeing more severe weather, he said. There’s “not a lot of widespread potential” for Saturday, he said, but with a cold front coming through Sunday, that creates a higher risk for isolated tornadoes.
“Hail and wind are the primary threat, but a tornado cannot be ruled out. Stay up to date as the forecast verifies,” NWS said in a tweet Saturday morning.