A large area of thunderstorms swept across southern and central Minnesota during the day of Wednesday August 19. These were the same storms that brought the severe weather over eastern Minnesota and Western Wisconsin.
The rains ended by mid afternoon over the Twin Cities, but continued through the night and into Thursday morning over parts of east central Minnesota. A 50 mile wide band of one to two inch rainfall fell from Worthington through the Twin Cities, There was a two to three inch band north of the twin Cities Metro area to north of Duluth. Duluth had 2.89 inches of rain on August 19. The heaviest rain fell over Pine and Kanabec Counties, with the highest total reported so far by a volunteer network gage is 5.49 inches at Askov in Pine County. Some of the two inch rains fell where the drought was the worst in Anoka and Chisago Counties.
Below are Public Information Statements from the National Weather Service.
PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DULUTH MN
1215 PM CDT THU AUG 20 2009
..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...
..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
..REMARKS..
1212 PM HEAVY RAIN 2 SW HINCKLEY 45.99N 92.97W
08/20/2009 M5.20 INCH PINE MN CO-OP OBSERVER
WEATHER OBSERVERS HAVE REPORTED BETWEEN 5-6 INCHES HAS
FALLEN SO FAR ACROSS PORTIONS OF PINE COUNTY. NO FLOODING
HAS BEEN REPORTED. STREAMS AND DITCHES ARE FULL. SOME
CULVERTS HAVE BACKED UP ALLOWING WATER OVER DRIVEWAYS.
PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DULUTH MN
626 AM CDT THU AUG 20 2009
HERE IS A PRELIMINARY LIST OF RAINFALL AMOUNTS FROM
YESTERDAY AND OVERNIGHT.
1.5 SW HINCKLEY, MN 6.90 INCHES REPORTED 650 PM
ASKOV, MN 5.49 INCHES REPORTED 615 PM
PROCTOR, MN 3.97 INCHES REPORTED LATE EVENING
SANDSTONE, MN 5.00 INCHES REPORTED 900 PM
FINLAYSON, MN 5.50 INCHES REPORTED 800 PM
GARY - NEW DULUTH, MN 4.00 INCHES REPORTED 1000 PM
CLOQUET, MN 3.50 INCHES REPORTED 900 PM
3 MILES N PINE CITY, MN 3.49 INCHES REPORTED 554 PM
NWS DULUTH 2.89 INCHES REPORTED 100 AM
OAKLAND, WI 2.55 INCHES REPORTED 938 PM
BRUNO, MN 2.40 INCHES REPORTED 705 PM
EMBARRASS, MN 1.43 INCHES REPORTED 555 AM
TRADE LAKE, WI 1.00 INCHES REPORTED 700 PM
5 MILES SW BRAINERD, MN 0.86 INCHES REPORTED 600 AM
GILE, WI 0.26 INCHES REPORTED 500 AM
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DULUTH MN
0128 AM CDT THU AUG 20 2009
...RECORD DAILY MAXIMUM RAINFALL SET AT DULUTH MN...
A RECORD RAINFALL OF 2.89 INCH(ES) WAS SET AT DULUTH MN YESTERDAY.
THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 1.56 SET IN 1884.