NWS Confirms Several Tornadoes In Carlton, Aitkin, Crow Wing Counties

UPDATE 7 P.M. JUNE 13:  The National Weather Service office in Duluth has confirmed some of the damage from severe storms passing through parts of the Northland Wednesday was due to several tornadoes.

As of Thursday evening, they determined a tornado traveled about five miles near Wright in Carlton County around 7 p.m.  It has been given an EF-0 rating, meaning top wind speeds were between 65 to 85 miles per hour.

Survey teams also found tornado damage in several areas of Aitkin and Crow Wing counties.  Those areas include:

• Cedar Lake and Hammal Lake southwest of Aitkin
• Rabbit Lake and Highway 6 north of Crosby
• Clamshell Lake west of Crosslake

Additional photos and videos provided to the National Weather Service indicates a possible tornado near Glen in Aitkin County, as well as possible hail and wind damage near Dads Corner in southeast Aitkin County.  Survey teams have not been able to get to these areas as of late Thursday.

Warning Coordination Meteorologist Joe Moore tells Fox 21 their focus will soon shift to determining if the damage in Crow Wing and Aitkin counties was from one or multiple tornados.  “We definitely think there were probably maybe one or more segments of that tornado.  Whether it is going to be a continuous path or a few broken segments; we will determine that in the coming days as we review all of the damage information.”

The next update on the NWS’ survey of storm damage is expected no later than Friday evening.

ORIGINAL POST:

AITKIN COUNTY, Minn. — After tracking the severe weather Wednesday, members of the National Weather Service office in Duluth went out across the Northland to get a closer look at the damage it left behind.

One survey team spent Thursday in Aitkin, Crow Wing, and Carlton counties to see what exactly happened. That includes a possible tornado southeast of Aitkin, where winds speeds may have been least 80 miles per hour.

So we have seen a number of out buildings that were damaged or destroyed,” said Joe Moore, the warning coordination meteorologist in Duluth. “There was one home on Hammal Lake, a cabin, that was heavily damaged and parts of it were strewn into the lake.”

The survey will also help determine how accurate their warnings for this storm were.

“We’re going to use that for training cases. This will certainly be a training case that our current and new meteorologists will go through in future years to learn how to better warn,” said Moore. “We certainly think that there is always room for improvement to learn about how we can make those tornado warnings better and provide advance notice ahead of these storms.”

A survey team also headed up the North Shore to see if any damage took place from a storm that had Tornado Warnings issued for it.