Associated Press

Stormy weather pelted central and western North Dakota with a record rain and sent a tornado skipping over a small community in Cass County.

Page-area farmer Steve Johnson said he and his brother-in-law followed the tornado in a pickup as it approached the town from the southeast, uprooted some trees and went back into the clouds before touching down again to the north.

"It was a pretty amazing sight," Johnson said. "When it was starting to come south, we had to put it (the pickup) in reverse so we had an option to get out of there."

Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said the town was lucky.

"It moved a semitrailer about 12 feet and flipped over a grain auger at the elevator," Lane said. "We got very, very lucky - no serious damage and no injuries."

The National Weather Service said Bismarck got a record 1.95 inches of rain Wednesday, topping the May 30 mark of 1.53 inches set in 1884.

Dickinson also set a record, with 0.95 inch, topping the 0.86-inch mark set two years ago.

The weather service said Bismarck has received 5.34 inches of rain for the month of May.

More rain fell Thursday.

"This system that brought all this rain in the past 24 hours is only slowing moving off to the east. So until it's entirely out of here, over the next day or two days, we'll probably see showers on and off in our area," said forecaster Len Peterson, at the National Weather Service in Bismarck.

Peterson said most of the state got at least a trace of rain Wednesday.

Forecasters said areas around Lehr, in northern McIntosh County, were among the wettest in the state Wednesday, with 2.7 inches of rain reported by about 6:30 p.m.