Destructive tornado, very large hail and heavy rain hit Wisconsin Monday

Monday was quite the powerful weather day across the state of Wisconsin. A cluster of storms moved in from the arrowhead of Minnesota through Rhinelander and dived south towards the Appleton/Menasha area where the National Weather Service has confirmed at least EF-2 damage and likely stronger. That storm is also responsible for hail the size of softballs and grapefruit which could be a new state record for hail. The storm continued through southeast Wisconsin into northern Illinois. 

While that destructive storm was moving through northern Wisconsin, southeast Wisconsin saw a rapidly developing line of storms shortly before 10:00 AM. That line went from nothing on radar to severe within 30 minutes and moved east until it was over Lake Michigan. Numerous reports of hail were observed from that line with the largest hail stones reported in eastern Dodge County and the NW corner of Waukesha County. 

The storms also dropped some very heavy rain with a good portion of southeast Wisconsin picking up between 1-3" of rain, and even more in some locations. Parts of Walworth, Racine and Kenosha Counties were under a brief flash flood warning for the heavy rain of 2-3.50". We desperately needed some rain and most were thankful to get a good soaking but in some areas it was too much, too fast. 

In Milwaukee, the airport picked up 1.75" of rain which broke a record for daily rainfall for the date - July 27th. The previous daily rainfall record was 1.50" set in 2011. 

Thankfully we have a few days to dry out and clean up from the storms. There are no good chances for rain through Thursday. But some showers and isolated storms do look very possible for Friday and Saturday. 

High temperatures Monday really reflected who saw the storms and who didn't. Storms initial developed in western Jefferson, Dodge and Walworth Counties and moved east so all of Wisconsin stayed in the middle 80s for highs. Meanwhile Madison didn't see the storms and had a high of 97 just three degrees away from the record. Lone Rock got all the way to 99! Once you add in humidity with dew points well into the 70s we saw some portions of south central and southwest Wisconsin pushing close to 120 for a feels like temperatures!

Download the CBS 58 Weather app to stay up to date on the latest tornado rating for the Menasha tornado.