The National Weather Service in Milwaukee/Sullivan confirmed multiple tornadoes touched down April 14 in Wisconsin.
By mid-afternoon, it was confirmed tornadoes occurred in Endeavor, a small community in southwest Marquette County and in Sussex, where a church and multiple businesses were damaged.
J.J. Wood, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Milwaukee/Sullivan, said teams were still investigating reports of tornadoes in East Troy and in the Kenosha-Racine area at mid-afternoon April 15.
Those are areas that, based on reports and radar signatures, meteorologists suspect the damage came from tornadoes, but will not be able to confirm whether tornadoes touched down, or if the damage just came from powerful winds, until the teams assess the areas.
“It might take today and tomorrow for them to really assess everything before we can get final numbers,” Wood said. “We’re not going to be able to get to everything today.”
A tornado warning was issued for Milwaukee County around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, lasting until around 7:15 p.m. The National Weather Service warned that a “tornadic thunderstorm” would impact Milwaukee, Wauwatosa, Brown Deer, Elm Grove, Glendale and River Hills.
Around 8:30 p.m. the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for Racine County. Just before 9 p.m., the warning extended into much of Kenosha County, including the cities of Kenosha, Pleasant Prairie and Somers.
Damage from the April 14 storms was caused by more than just intense winds; large hail also hit areas closer to Madison.
“The east side of Madison has some very large hail – a lot of golf ball to up to baseball-sized [hailstones]. We got a report or two of softball-sized hail … so there’s a lot of hail damage there,” Wood said.
Large hail was also documented in Waukesha and Jefferson counties, he said, and some flooding took place across areas of southeastern Wisconsin.
“It wasn’t anything major, but we did have some minor flooding in some low areas,” Wood said.
While storms may hit the area again April 15, they will likely not be as severe.
“If anything does occur, it won’t be like [April 14],” Wood said. “I think hail and wind would be the biggest risk, if we see anything later today into this evening.”
Contact Kelli Arseneau at (920) 213-3721 or karseneau@gannett.com. Follow her on X at @ArseneauKelli.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: NWS confirms tornados following storms, other still being investigated
Reporting by Kelli Arseneau, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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