First tornado touchdown in 2012 reported near Wausau last night

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Tornado

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Wisconsin finally had its first tornado touchdown of the year last night. Ashley Wolf of the National Weather Service said the last time the Badger State made it this late in the year without a twister was in 1997. Officials said last night’s tornado first went down about two miles south of Marathon City around seven o’clock. And it was on-and-off the ground for five minutes, heading northeast until it finally went up for good in the town of Rib Mountain, near Wausau. Authorities have been looking for structural damage from the tornado – but as of late last night, all they found were fallen trees. Wisconsin Emergency Management said some streets in Eau Claire were closed yesterday, due to downed trees and power lines. And the strong winds brought down a radio station tower, which knocked several stations off the air. Meanwhile, the lack of tornadoes in 2012 has been a real relief for Wisconsinites – at least so far. The Weather Service said 84 twisters touched down in the state over the last two years – just one short of the total for the previous four years. Wisconsin had 38 tornadoes in 2011. The state’s record is 62 in 2005.

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Almost three-thousand electric customers in north central and northeast Wisconsin are still without power this morning, after high winds knocked down trees and power lines. The Wisconsin Public Service utility said 88-hundred customers were in the dark of late last night – and that number was cut down to 29-hundred by 6:30 this morning. Just over a-thousand of those outages are in the Minocqua area. Almost 500 customers were still without power in Rhinelander. Hundreds were also in the dark in Eagle River, Antigo, and Wausaukee areas. Wind gusts hit 60-miles-an-hour in the Badger State yesterday and last evening before dying down. The air was calm this morning in parts of western Wisconsin, while Milwaukee and spots along Lake Michigan had gusts of 20-miles-an-hour. Forecasters expect a dry and cooler day today before more storms move in for the Memorial Day Weekend.

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