Despite the heavy rains and minor flooding, weather experts say that Mower County was considerably lucky following storms that raged through the area Tuesday.

A flood warning continues for Turtle Creek near Austin, according to the National Weather Service in La Crosse (NWS), until late Thursday night or until the warning is cancelled. Around 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, the stage was at 10.3 feet, with the flood stage set at 10.5 feet. The water levels were expected to rise above flood stage at 11 feet by Wednesday night, and was expected to fall below flood stage this morning.

However, Austin Police Chief Brian Krueger said Wednesday morning that significant flooding wasn’t expected, though both the Cedar River and Turtle Creek experienced minor flooding.

Krueger also said that according to numbers he had seen, the city of Austin received between 4 and 4.5 inches of rain.

During the time of the heaviest rainfall, a portion of Interstate 90 was closed for a bit due to localized flooding.

Wednesday’s severe thunderstorms were not related to Tropical Storm Gordon, according to Todd Shea, NWS meteorologist. He also said that while there was talks of whether the tropical storm systems would reach southeast Minnesota, it does not appear that Gordon would affect the area.

“It looks pretty dry for the next week,” Shea added, noting that this amount of rain was considered to be “abnormal” during any time of the year.

“We’ve had instances late summer and early fall of rainfall totals reaching 4 to 6 inches,” he said. “It’s bit of an extreme, although I wouldn’t call it historic rain. Its higher impact is certainly a problem.”

For Mower County, the area that was the most heavily saturated with rain was near Lansing with rainfall reaching 3.08 inches. Northwest Austin near Turtle Creek received 2.84 inches and northeast Austin near the Dobbins Creek area received 2.74 inches. Grand Meadow had about 2.10 inches of rain, and Ostrander with 1.67 inches.

Despite the reported rain totals, Mower County was not as heavily affected as other parts of the region. Communities north of Austin received heavier rains such as Kasson reaching 5 inches and Hayfield with 3.37 inches that resulted in the cancellation of some sporting events, Shea said. Also, a dry summer helped prevent worser flooding problems that could’ve happened.

“Because it had been drier, it helped us handle the flooding a little bit better,” he said. “However, the problem was that a lot of areas around the region hadn’t been so lucky and got hit consecutively with multiple storms that led to a lot of bigger problems. It could’ve been a lot worse.”

There were no reported or confirmed tornado touchdowns in Mower County, although there was one confirmed tornado in Winona County that happened Tuesday, Shea added.

Eric Johnson contributed to this report.