A barrage of tornado might

Multiple tornadoes touched down Thursday afternoon in the Red River Valley, killing at least two people in northwestern Minnesota and causing destruction on both sides of the river.

In Mentor, Minn., a person was killed and the C-Store gas station and convenience store along U.S. Highway 2 was destroyed by a tornado that came through town at an angle, according to the Minnesota State Patrol.

An elderly woman was killed after her home in Almora, Minn., a small town of about 20 near Wadena, was destroyed by a tornado. At least three people were injured in that area, Otter Tail County Emergency spokesman David Hauser said.

Owen Dahl lost his welding business, home, three sheds and a car when a tornado ripped through his 10-acre site outside of Northwood, N.D.

There were some reports of damage to mobile homes and at least one shed near Emerado, N.D., but no initial reports of any injuries.

Cabins were damaged along the northeastern side of Maple Lake from a tornado shortly after it went through Mentor.

A dispatcher with the Marshall County Sheriff's Department said there were reports of some trees that fell because of strong winds northeast of Warren, Minn.

And more reports of damage to homes and buildings up and down the Red River Valley were coming in Thursday evening.

'Ripe for tornadoes'

Al Voelker, senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Grand Forks, said weather experts knew by Thursday morning that the chances were good for tornadoes in the Red River Valley.

"We had several frontal boundaries that moved through the forecast area," he said, adding conditions were "pretty ripe for tornadoes" because of instability, wind shear and other factors.

Those conditions prompted the weather service to issue a tornado watch at 12:23 p.m., and tornado warnings started to be released at about 3 p.m. as fun­­­nels were reported in multiple locations.

A wind gust of 70 mph was reported shortly before 9 a.m. on a wind sensor at Fargo's Hector International Airport.

Heavy rain became a problem in some areas, with rainfall of 5 inches reported from Kragnes to Georgetown, Minn., north of Moorhead.

Across the Red River in West Fargo, N.D., several trees fell and some streets had flash flooding, according to reports. Half-inch hail fell in parts of West Fargo.

A maze of tornado warnings crisscrossed the borders of Grand Forks County and neighboring counties during the late afternoon.

At 3:40 p.m., spotters reported a tornado on the ground near Finley, N.D., and at 4:02 reports came in about a possible tornado sighting west of Reynolds, N.D., as well as reports of possible tornadoes near Thompson and Hatton, N.D., according to the police band radio.

A tornado was spotted five miles northeast of Gilby, N.D., just before 5 p.m., and a funnel cloud was reported near the town less than an hour later.

A funnel cloud was spotted about a mile west of Reynolds, N.D., at 5:15 p.m., and a tornado was spotted at 5:55 p.m. between Fisher, Minn., and Grand Forks.

The sirens went off in Grand Forks for a second time at 5:28 p.m. and later stopped about 5 minutes later after hail fell in parts of the city.

'Wait and see'

There were many blurred photos of trees and clouds on Jeremy Feuer's camera, but, in a few of them, there were clear, unmistakable images of a funnel stretching from the clouds to the ground behind a barn not far to the west.

Feuer, his wife, Sima, and her co-worker were on the freeway home to Winnipeg from St. Paul when they spotted the storm about 20 minutes south of Grand Forks.

"We tried to outrun it but didn't realize it's a bit of a fool's errand," he said of their attempt to get far enough north before the storm system crossed Interstate 29.

They ended up waiting it out in a gas station in Manvel, N.D., where they saw two more funnel clouds west of town.

Voelker said the "extremely active" storm system was so widespread that it was hard to get a handle on just how many tornadoes it produced Thursday afternoon and evening. When asked if he thought there were more than a dozen, he said that was "quite possible."

"We don't know yet," he said. "There are a lot of areas we're going to have to drive out and look at damage. We know of at least three or four damaging tornadoes."

Emergency services director Tom Tezel said the local Red Cross chapter was keeping in touch with city and county officials in the Grand Forks area Thursday evening in case the organization's help was needed.

"The big thing is once a storm hits, it's a matter of seeing what the damage is and then the Red Cross will mobilize to assist those people who are in need," he said.

But, at least Thursday night, it was "kind of a wait and see" to find out the extent of damage and what needed to be done.

People in the Red River Valley "certainly aren't strangers to tornadoes," Voelker said. But the size and activity of Thursday's "significant tornado outbreak" made this storm stand out.

"There's a couple of us that have got about 30 years in the weather service and the only one we can think of that was somewhat of a similar situation was in 1999," he said, referring to a June 6 series of at least 10 tornadoes that tore up homes in Mountain, N.D., and caused damage in several counties on both sides of the Red River.

Thursday's weather was a "particularly large event" for our neck of the woods, Voelker said.

"But this would be a large event I would guess for almost anywhere."

Several Herald staff writers contributed to this report. Reach Johnson at (701) 780-1105; (800) 477-6572, ext. 105; or send e-mail to rjohnson@gfherald.com .