Deadly storm passes over Maple Lake

It was a Memorial Day weekend for the record books as Maple Lake and several surrounding communities fell victim to a band of supercell thunderstorms that produced high winds and large hail before spawning tornadoes east of Maple Lake, most notably in Coon Rapids and Hugo.

Storms rolled through the area Sunday afternoon around 4 p.m., pelting the area with hail that ranged in size from marbles to golf ball to baseballs, leaving some lawns looking like they survived yet another late season snowstorm.

“This is not an uncommon weather pattern in the Midwest,” said DNR climatologist Greg Spoden. “The large hail is indicative of the severity of the thunderstorm. There was enough lift in the storm to keep the hailstones aloft, cycling them within the storm, adding layers until they were too heavy to support. If you split a hail stone in two it’s easy to see the layers it’s made up of. There’s no doubt this was the same cell the tornadoes came from. Large hail and tornadoes often accompany each other.”

Uncommon or not, Sunday afternoon’s storms laid a path of damage through the area sure to be the stuff of Memorial weekend stories for years to come.

Don Pribyl, a Reserve Officer for Wright County, lives north of Maple Lake on Cty. Rd. 106, an area right in the heart of the storm.

“It was one heck of a storm,” said Pribyl. “Probably the worst I’ve ever seen. The steel siding on my house is dented and windows are busted in, it was really something. I had my squad car parked along side the house and it got hammered by hail. The windshield shattered and I’m afraid if I drove it it would fall right in.

“It put a hole in my pick up topper you could shove a baseball through, in fact every car parked outside around here has broken windows. The hail was coming down at an angle, with the wind blowing the way it was it really did some damage. My son has a 40 by 80 shed and it got pounded. If you look up from the inside you can see daylight. We even found a young buck dead in the field, there was blood all around it, it must have gotten hit right on the head.”

More information appears in this weeks issue of the Messenger.