“Tornado,” especially when it comes in multiples, is a scary word. But when it comes to area crop damage, Wednesday’s severe weather events didn’t hold a candle to July. “As far as widespread damage, the damage that we saw in the middle of July from that storm (was much worse),” said Jason Ertl, a University of Minnesota Extension educator based in Nicollet County, referring to the damaging combination of strong winds, large hail and tornadoes that shredded crops in areas from Lake Crystal to Winthrop July 9. Late afternoon Wednesday certainly saw some active weather, though. The National Weather Service damage assessment teams confirmed six EF-0 tornadoes and one EF-1 tornado touched down and swept northward through Nicollet and Sibley counties. (EF-0 is classified as 65 to 85 mph winds and EF-1 is 86 to 100 mph, although two tornadoes near Nicollet and New Prague are estimated to have been 60 mph at peak or below.) The first tornado was spotted at about 4:45 p.m. south of Nicollet, and a second developed in the same area just after 5 p.m. The EF-1 multi-vortex tornado developed in northern Nicollet County near New Sweden at about 5:35 p.m., cutting a 3-mile path north into Sibley County. At about 6:30 p.m. two tornadoes developed near Winthrop. Just after 7 p.m. a tornado developed south of New Prague. Finally, another developed south of Lester Prairie just after 8 p.m. Meteorologist Lisa Schmit, with the National Weather Service in Chanhassen, said the “big story” was the amount of rain that fell in a six- to 12-hour period. Eastern Brown County received 6 to 9 inches. Nicollet County had reports of 4 to 5 inches. “That’s pretty significant,” Schmit said, adding that rural areas were the heaviest hit. Ertl said the heavy rains caused a lot of standing water in fields, but the pooling generally will not damage crops. “We expect that to go down over the next few days or the next week,” he said. The crop damage was mainly isolated to where the tornadoes touched down, Ertl said. Because there was no hail or widespread high winds involved in the storms, the crop damage was minimal and more difficult to estimate due in part to sporadic touchdowns. “There was a lot of heavy downpour and high winds around the twisters,” he said. “There certainly would be some damage in the vicinity of the twisters (where they touched down).” Dwight DeBoer, owner of Community Insurance Agency in Lafayette, said far less damage was done to crops Wednesday than from the July storm. He did hear from one farmer east of Lafayette whose corn and soybean crops sustained some damage. In the areas a tornado touched down on that farm, DeBoer said, “it flattened the fields.” “But that big hail storm from July 9, that took out thousands of acres,” DeBoer said. Paul Gaspar, a research scientist with the seed company DuPont Pioneer, said he’s not aware of any damage to their plots across southern Minnesota. (The company has numerous 5- by 17.5-foot plots across the region used for genetic research.) “Our research plots in that area are OK,” he said. “There’s damage out there, but (with this kind of storm) it’s going to be on a field by field basis.” Ertl said the most pressing need for all area crops right now is heat and sunshine, which has been pretty lacking this summer. “As we come to the end of the growing season, we need to get caught up,” he said. Source - http://www.mankatofreepress.com