May 24, 2006: Straight-line wind and a tornado across five counties

A broken like of thunderstorms developed ahead of a cold front headed into western Wisconsin during the late afternoon hours. With a moderately unstable airmass and decent directional shear, some storms took on supercellular characteristics. One such storm produced a tornado in Sauk County, 4.5 miles south-southwest of Devils Lake, just west of STH 12 on the west side of the Badger Army Amo Plant, in the Bluffview area. The tornado was brief and weak. No significant damage was noted. The line progressed east across most of southern Wisconsin during the early evening, producing areas of large hail and damaging straight-line winds which uprooted large trees or broke large tree branches out of trees. In Rock County, scattered large trees were uprooted, which in turn blocked several roads. About a half-dozen homes were lightly damaged due to trees or tree branches crashing down on them. Heavy rainfall in the Madison area led to urban-type flooding. Lightning strikes and/or tree limbs hitting power lines resulted in about 2900 customers losing electrical power, mostly in the Fort Atkinson (Jefferson Co.) and Delafield (Waukesha Co.) areas.