Many people in Wabasha woke up to find downed trees in their yards and spending part of the day without power, all from Wednesday night's storms.

On one farm, the siding and roof of a shed blew off and was scattered in a nearby field. An irrigation system was twisted and left upside down.

"They almost acted like twisters because of the way they spun around and our house was covered in leaves from all directions," said Kay Saterdalen, who had damaged trees in her yard.

Wabasha County Emergency Management says the storm left over 500 people without power, for about 14 hours.

     Today marks the official start of spring.  But already, a few places got their first taste of severe weather on their final day of winter.
     Damage reports are not widespread but there were some reports of roofs torn off and power knocked in Elysian, that's northeast of the local area near Mankato.

     Closer to home, a few communities saw strong winds.  A wind gust of 58 mph was reported at the airport in Rochester Intl. Airport.  63 mph was recorded in Mason City.

     A semi was toppled by winds near Dexter.

     Two miles north of Albert Lea a grain bin was shifted off it's foundation by strong winds.  It's pictured above.

     In Glenville, a power pole fire caused an outage for nearly 400 people.

     Also tree limbs in a few communities sustained some damage.

It's the winter that hasn't been winter.  This Winter (December-February) in SE Minnesota is so far the 2nd warmest all time seeing an average temperature of 24.7°. The warmest was back in 01-02 at 25.1°. There's still 13 more days left to this month and with mild temperatures ahead we could break the alltime record.  Temperatures only need to make up 0.4° on average.

Here's the list: