Weather expected to be less severe Saturday evening
Jul. 23—ROCHESTER — The weather forecast still shows thunderstorms possible for the rest of Saturday, July 23, 2022, but, according to the National Weather Service in La Crosse, the storms will be more mild than the cell that hit southeast Minnesota in the early afternoon.
Storms are expected to redevelop in the evening hours, with the National Weather Service anticipating storms as early as 8 p.m. Saturday evening. A severe thunderstorm warning is in effect until 7 p.m. Saturday.
The threat of these storms is heavy rain, lightning and wind gusts and the possibility for flooding, though not much flooding is expected in the Rochester area.
Severe weather is less likely to occur. Tornadoes aren't out of the question, but forecasters said a lot of energy was used in the first round of storms, lessening the threat of tornadoes.
After the early afternoon storm, tree damage was reported the most. Straight flooding was reported in Austin, but the National Weather Service said the flooding could be due to drains not being able to handle that water in a timely manner.
The highest wind gust reported early Saturday afternoon was 66 miles per hour.
About 3,300 people lost power in Rochester during the storm, with over 2,000 customers reporting an outage at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, according to Rochester Public Utilities'
outage map
.
