Powerful storms left thousands without out power early Wednesday morning according to Xcel Energy.
Shortly after 5 a.m. Xcel Energy reported 42,506 customers were impacted by power outages, including 41,838 across the Twin Cities.
The strongest wind gusts were reported southwest of the Twin Cities, topping out at 81 miles per hour west of Hector, Minnesota.
"Initially the strongest bursts of wind gusts were down in the Redwood Falls/Renville County area," said Meteorologist Tyler Hasenstein with the National Weather Service in the Twin Cities. "Gusts weakened by the time they hit the Twin Cities."
MSP Airport reported a 62 mile per hour wind gust and there were a number of downed trees reported across the metro.
Hasenstein says the nocturnal mesoscale convective system (MCS) was something the National Weather Service was tracking as it formed over the Dakotas and moved east into Minnesota.
"It wasn't that uncommon for this type of system," Hasenstein added. "The thing that was not really expected was just how strong some of the wind gusts ended up being, but that is kind of the nature of this type of system where it doesn't really take too much for it to strengthen enough to produce some of those stronger gusts."
Heat index values in the 110 area for parts of western Minnesota brought risks of severe weather throughout the day on Tuesday.
"Those high heat indexes tend to cap the atmosphere and keep storms from forming," Hasenstein said. "Since this complex formed over the Dakotas where it was a little cooler over and migrated over us, that's how it was able to maintain its strength and tap into the instability rich air that we had over us."