National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Heavy Rainfall and Severe Thunderstorm Threats for the Plains and Southeast

A frontal boundary extending from the western High Plains to the Southeast will focus additional showers and thunderstorms this weekend. Some of these storms may become severe, alongside frequent lightning, and isolated instances of flash flooding. Meanwhile dry conditions will continue for the Great Basin where fire weather concerns linger. For the mid-Atlantic and Northeast, seasonable weather. Read More >

Overview

Numerous severe thunderstorms occurred across central North Dakota on Wednesday, August 28th and the early morning hours of Thursday the 29th, 2024, including two confirmed tornadoes. An EF-1 tornado touched down just east of Steele, turning over train cars and flattening fields. Another brief tornado was observed in Sioux County near Selfridge, which caused a small amount of power pole damage. The same storm that produced the EF-1 tornado near Steele also produced straight-line damaging winds up to 100 mph that knocked over an empty grain bin, snapped power poles, and destroyed a sunflower field near Sterling. Large hail was a more widespread impact from these storms. The largest hail, which occurred 5 miles south of St. Anthony in southeast Morton County, was estimated to be baseball size. There were also several reports of quarter to golf ball size hail along with snapped trees in the Bismarck area. Finally, multiple rounds of storms over Stutsman County produced localized flooding. The highest rain report was 5 inches at 1 mile south of Windsor.

Image
Tornado near Steele

(Photo courtesy Eric Whitehill, Valley News Live)

nws logo Media use of NWS Web News Stories is encouraged!
Please acknowledge the NWS as the source of any news information accessed from this site.
nws logo