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BILL CATLIN: National Weather Service forecasters saw trouble as early as Saturday afternoon. Forecasts mentioned severe thunderstorms, and then, possible tornadoes.

Craig Edwards, a meteorologist in charge of the Twin Cities office, says, early Sunday afternoon, the Federal Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, weighed in with a tornado watch for Southern Minnesota.

CRAIG EDWARDS: The warning said, this is a particularly dangerous situation with very damaging tornadoes possible. And we continue to watch the radar light up real rapidly. About 2:30, the thunderstorms exploded in the metro area quickly within a matter of half an hour, producing hail up to marble and dime size.

And then as we were concentrating on the metro area, we were watching these thunderstorms develop over Southwest Minnesota.

BILL CATLIN: The Southwestern Minnesota storms were part of a supercell, a thunderstorm known to spread for miles and last for hours. The supercell storm may have gotten fuel from warm, moist gulf stream air, which reached this far north earlier in the year than usual.

A tornado spawned in this meteorological brew slammed the small town of Comfrey in Brown County. Preliminary weather service reports put the time at 4:35. The winds destroyed the fire station, city liquor store, a church, and a cafe. Gas leaks forced residents to evacuate.

Fire Chief Mark Warner says, he decided to sound the warning sirens only a minute or less before the tornado hit.

MARK WARNER: Literally had very little warning. I had another one of my spotters who was coming in, called the cell phone, or called on a cell phone to our fire station. He, in turn, relayed the message that there was damage to the southwest of us, and it looked extensive.

I made the decision at that time to activate the siren, the civil defense siren.

BILL CATLIN: Over the next hour, the storm chugged to east, northeast, bearing down on Saint Peter. Along the way, tornadoes were sighted in Hanska, Cambria, Courtland, and three locations in Nicollet County.

In the Twin Cities, Julie Gowens had been keeping track of the storm on the radio. A graphic artist with a growing interest in photography, she thought the storm sounded like a great opportunity to take some dramatic shots. She hopped in her Honda and headed south. Just on the outskirts of Saint Peter, she found the storm, a mere few blocks away and too close for comfort.

When she headed back to the main highway, she took a wrong turn and headed south towards the storm.

JULIE GOWENS: I looked to my right and saw that it was much bigger than it was just a moment prior. And I could see power lines being snapped. I could see the blue light pops. And I realized that this is definitely a tornado, that I was in its path, and I couldn't go south.

BILL CATLIN: To the south, the tornado was in the process of destroying more than 500 Saint Peter homes and damaging 1,700 more. The winds blew out windows at Gustavus Adolphus College and toppled the chapel spire. A campus parking lot became a junkyard with about 50 battered cars tossed about.

At the north end of town, Julie Gowens says, she never saw the typical funnel cloud, but she turned around at the first chance.

JULIE GOWENS: At that point, I realized I was on the perimeter or the periphery of the, I guess, vortex, because I could see the debris flying in front of me. And it was going from left to right. Basically, hitting my car and pushing me off. And I could hear this continuous thundering sound that was just absolutely loud.

BILL CATLIN: Gowens says, she reached 80 or 90 miles an hour in a desperate effort to get away.

JULIE GOWENS: I was beyond frightened. I was petrified. I had to get out of there. And that was the only thing in my mind. I was too afraid to look back because I was afraid it would be right on behind me. I didn't really calm down for probably a good hour.

FRANK WEBER: What I really notice is the pressure, our ears, just like in an airplane or something. Really, really a vacuum in our ears, big time.

BILL CATLIN: Frank Weber manages the Country Kitchen Restaurant located on the north end of downtown Saint Peter. He's a lifelong resident of the area. But says, he's never experienced a tornado before.

He'd been monitoring the weather on the radio. And as the storm gathered that afternoon, he went out periodically to check the sky. He says, the siren blew, and he came back in and calmly told the 75 or so patrons to be ready to head for safety in the kitchen. He says, the siren blew for about 20 minutes.

FRANK WEBER: I went back outside and then it started getting darker and darker. And I looked to the north and northwest. And I say, oh, my. I come running in. And I didn't really see a tornado, but you could see it was as dark as the ace of spades.

And I came in. And I told everybody, we got to start moving right now. And there was a few people that said, can we take our food with us?

[LAUGHS]

But we did get back to the kitchen at that time.

BILL CATLIN: State Senator Jim Vickerman of Tracy hailed Weber as a hero for his action. Vickerman was one of the customers who took shelter in the kitchen.

JIM VICKERMAN: It got real quiet. And then all at once, I just heard like a womp, womp. I can still remember that. And I looked up in the roof. It moved. And it did twist it. It stayed on. And then it was quiet. And then he told us to stay in there and not come out until he looked because electricity wires was all over. It was completely dark.

Everything was covered with glass. And I noticed particularly the glass sitting on the table were just pulverized.

BILL CATLIN: Within minutes of the destruction in Saint Peter, tornadoes hit Le Center in Le Sueur County, 10 or 15 miles away, Mayor Gary Factor described the southern third of the town as devastated. 100 to 150 people had to find shelter after the tornado ravaged a trailer court.

Asked to describe the scene, Chief Deputy Sheriff Randy Tuma doesn't even pause.

RANDY TUMA: The trailer court looks like where a bomb went off. It looks like it been bombed. Very adjacent to that is a trucking firm that's leveled on the outskirts of town. There's an industrial park, and that was severely hit. The roofs were tore off.

BILL CATLIN: National Weather Service officials estimate winds in Le Center at 150 miles an hour, and say, the tornado's footprint might be as wide as a quarter mile. The storm produced one more tornado report at 6:20 PM in Lonsdale in Rice County. The last entry in the National Weather Service preliminary storm report occurs nearly four hours after it all began.

6:38, Farmington in Dakota County, hail, an inch and 3/4 in diameter. Craig Edwards of the National Weather Service says, this could signal the start of a long season.

CRAIG EDWARDS: We've still got a lot of spring to go yet. And that's what concerns us that we haven't even hit April yet. So we got April and May to go with severe storms yet in Minnesota,

BILL CATLIN: Edwards says, indirectly, Sunday's storms may be the downside of the mild winter El Niño helped bestow on Minnesota.

For Minnesota Public Radio, I'm Bill Catlin.