DULUTH — Many roads across Minnesota’s Arrowhead region were flooded and washed out Tuesday night into Wednesday morning after waves of thunderstorms dropped more than 7 inches of rain in some areas.
Parts of the Iron Range across to the North Shore and across Lake Superior to Wisconsin’s Bayfield Peninsula appeared to be the hardest hit areas, with flooding across many roads and some roads entirely closed, according to the Minnesota Department Transportation website.
Minnesota Highway 1 west of Tower; state Highway 73 north of Chisholm; state Highway 135 near Eveleth, U.S. Highway 53 near Cook; state Highway 61 near Schroeder and near Tofte all had flooded areas. Other roads were reported covered by water with washouts in some areas.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation suggested using alternate routes for many of the roads, noting water should recede off most roads by mid-morning Wednesday, but some may still be damaged by the flooding.
Social media photos show a large section of North Arm Road near Burntside Lake near Ely entirely washed out.
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The National Weather Service in Duluth has posted a flood warning until 4 p.m. Wednesday for lasting impacts from the storm, including St. Louis, Lake, Cook, Itasca, Cass and parts of Koochiching, Crow Wing and Carlton counties in Minnesota and Ashland, Bayfield and Douglas counties in Wisconsin. Streams and low-lying areas in all those counties could continue to rise throughout the day before falling again.
Meanwhile, Biwabik city officials on Wednesday said major washouts had cut utility services to the Giants Ridge Recreation Area and other nearby developments. They said it was unclear when utilities would be restored.
While electricity went out during the storm in some areas, Minnesota Power reported no major outages Wednesday morning while Lake County Power reported 17 scattered outages reporting about 150 customers.
The National Weather Service in Duluth reported just over 2 inches of rain, mostly between 6 p.m. and 1 a.m., but radar reports indicated anywhere from 1.5 to 4 inches of rain fell in just a few hours late Tuesday over a large area of the Northland on top of already saturated ground. A flash flood watch and warnings were posted for most of the region.
While the storm system has moved out of the region, more rain is expected in some areas Thursday night into Saturday, with an additional 0.5 to 3 inches of rain expected.
In the metro, Wednesday is the first day since Friday that we are not expecting any periods of rain, the Twin Cities office of the National Weather Service reported on X. However, an additional one to three inches of rain is possible for most of the Twin Cities through this weekend.
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