View into a strong thunderstorm that had been overhead and was now about 50 miles northeast of Como Lake in St. Paul on June 10, 2026.
Image courtesy of Minnesota State Climatology Office
A warm and humid air mass interacted with an energetic weather pattern to produce multiple waves of heavy thunderstorms across Minnesota from throughout Wednesday June 10, 2026. Some of the storms produced wind damage and large hail.
A large area of warm and humid conditions with strong winds aloft had started building into the region over the weekend of June 6-7. A series of strong, fast-moving disturbances produced rounds of strong to very severe thunderstorms each day beginning on Sunday June 7, when storms in North Dakota produced multiple reports of 80-100 mph winds. Monday's disturbance produced extreme thunderstorm winds in parts of Nebraska, where multiple sensors reported winds over 100 mph.
On Tuesday, the storms fired off in Manitoba and the Dakotas, eventually becoming quite intense again, before pushing into far western Minnesota around 1 AM Wednesday. The storms produced wind gusts of 83 and 78 mph near Madison, and then formed into a long arc and raced northeastward, crossing Interstate 94 lengthwise and passing through the Twin Cities before 4 AM.
The storms uprooted trees and knocked down power lines in swaths of western, central, northwestern, and eastern Minnesota early in the morning, with power outages affecting over 70,000 Minnesota customers.
Clouds and additional rain showers dominated the daylight hours on Wednesday morning, as the sultry air mass intensified. The dew point temperature reached a steamy 74 degrees F in the Twin Cities. This was an early instance of such muggy values, with only three years on record having earlier dates with dew points that high or higher.
As the clouds cleared during the afternoon, temperatures began rising quickly, making the air mass very unstable. The Twin Cities had its first 90-degree temperature of the season, with a high of 91 F.
Isolated to widely scattered thunderstorms began developing across all but southwestern Minnesota during the peak afternoon heating. Most of these storms were strong but not damaging, though large hail up to the size of golf balls and tennis balls pummeled parts of west-central Minnesota, including in and around Wadena. The isolated nature of many of these late-day and evening storms meant quickly-clearing skies with some excellent views of departing thunderstorms.
The thunderstorms ended a period of remarkable warmth. Many stations, including the Twin Cities, reached 80 F or higher for each of the first 10 days in June, with 17 of the last 18 days also reaching 80 F or higher. Stations in western and southwestern Minnesota reached 90 F or higher on several of those days. Much cooler air began settling into the region on Thursday June 11th.
Posted June 11, 2026
KAB