no sirens here yet, but one of the largest, most violent storm systems we've seen in a long, long time... so far, we've just seen a few drops...

Reporting from the furnace room of the lower level of my house. Heavy rain here..... my renter just went out for a cigarette....is he nuts....am I in his will?

Tornado reported near Faribault.....isn't the Koopman optional garden in Faribault?

Please please God keep all safe from harm. Thinking of you.

Betty

Not any major damage here. Tomato plants took a beating. Small Thai Basil bush on the deck is no where to be found. I have a tree line at the base of the property and alot of branches are lying around.

Hostas I bought for Mary4B at Jim's sale are stored safely under the eve on the east side of the house.

I hope the convention gardens fared as well. Would hate to disappoint the people travelling here for the conventions.

Wow! Tornadoes are super scary. We had one nearly two weeks ago touch down not far from here that made a ten mile path, and killed six people. The tornado was considered an F-4. The bulk of the storm, and its tornadoes, made its way out to Lake Erie where it couldn't do anymore damage. A month or so ago, two much smaller tornadoes touched down on either ends of the city I live in. Too close for comfort, in my opinion. We have no basement, our house is on a slab foundation. So I freak out every time I hear that siren go off. We've had quite a few bad storms this year. I like thunderstorms, but not when tornadoes are involved. Glad no major damage has been done to your property, or to you!

Karen

I hope everyone is ok. I hate when I hear about tornados on the news. That is why I live so far North East I don't want to worry about earthquakes and tornadoes.

White Bear Lake got off with a light shower. Apparently some areas got hail ranging all the way up to grapefruit size. I am most happy the storm skipped us as I had hail early last summer and wasn't looking forward to another Hosta-less summer. I do feel bad for the people in the tornado areas as the storms hit two large areas in the state and caused such terrible damage. Mary

Strong wind all day, and a couple of two-minute downpours in Golden Valley.

Somehow most of the metro area escaped this terrible storm, but it was devastating in several areas, lives, homes, and farms were lost, and it still is doing damage in the southeast corner of the state and in Wisconsin.

Prayers to all of you!! I went through one in Columbus Ohio in 1973, and I don't ever want to do it again!!Judy

Donahue's Clematis is in Faribault. I hope nothing bad happened to the nursery.

Listening to the morning news. Somewhere north of the Twin Cities got softball size hail. Holy cow! I can't even imagine the damage something that size could.

We went thru one last year on may 8th here in southern IL...well technically it was callled an inland hurricane. We had over 110 mph winds here, I had to take down my 80 year old twin silos due to damage, we had over 20 trees down in just our yard alone, had damage to the house and barns......over 20,000 worth of damage. We are still cutting down trees from last year. We were without power for over a week and you learn quickly how unprepared you are for that. We learned alot of lessons on keeping more water for drinking on hand, fuel to cook on with the coleman camping stove and stuff like that. Live and learn.
I have never heard such noises during that storm from inside and outside the house. It was crazy....I don't know I 'heard" the train noise coming.....just alot of loud groaning and breaking glass, grinding metal and stuff like that.
It was the only time in my life where I actually went to the basement and feared for my life, but my 5 year old grandson was with me and I didn't want him to get hurt so we were under the pool table.
I am usually the idiot on the front porch watching the storm. Not that time.

May have set a record... they had 35 different tornado sitings confirmed by trained spotters... but they'll go through all the info to see if they were truly all distinct - the Minnesota record for one day is currently 27... a wild night - and our biggest complaint is we have to pick up lots of branches and didn't get enough rain to even measure... strange strange night...