Storms brought twisters, flooding and power outages throughout Wisconsin. Three-to-four tornadoes appeared to touch down in the middle-third of Wisconsin last night. The National Weather Service said there were touchdowns in Wisconsin Rapids and Fort McCoy and a possible twister at Neenah. Wisconsin Emergency Operations Center said a tornado may have also damaged a house in Pierce County, where homes and barns went down near Ellsworth.
High winds blew two semi-trucks off the road at Baldwin, east of Hudson. Trees fell in central and northern areas, and flash floods tied up traffic in a number of areas. Mosinee had four inches of rain in two waves of storms. Chilton had almost three-and-a-half inches, while Oshkosh received another two-and-a-half inches, after up to six inches fell in that area last weekend. Areas of Outagamie County were sandbagging to counter the floods.
Thousands of homes went without power. As the first wave of storms went through Northwestern Wisconsin Wednesday morning scattered outages began occurring, according to Getter. The outages ranged from a half hour to several hours. Getter applauds the response of local officials and utility workers, “There was concern about the humidity and hot temperatures how that could impact but local emergency management directors were watching the situation very carefully providing any assistance.”
EOC did not receive reports of any casualties. Media reports said a man in Wausau was struck by lightning, but there was no immediate report on his condition.
NWS said three lines of storms moved through Wisconsin’s mid-section since Wednesday afternoon. Weaker thunderstorms moved through southern Wisconsin during the night.