At 10:35 p.m. Saturday, July 13, the ranch where Kathy Schoendoerfer, lives, about two miles outside of Ovando, received hail pictured here that was up to the size of a half dollar. The hail dented one of the ranch trucks.
County road crews and emergency responders were dispatched Sunday morning to clear Boy Scout Road where there were at least eight large trees blocking the road following Saturday night's storms.
Positive (red +) and Negative (blue -) lightning strikes along Highway 83 and Highway 200 from July 9 – July 15.
SEELEY LAKE – Thunderstorms rolled through the Clearwater and Blackfoot valleys starting Saturday afternoon that dropped up to golf ball-sized hail, three-quarters of an inch of precipitation in some areas and putting down lightning strikes until sunrise Sunday morning. In Seeley Lake some roads were blocked due to downed trees and vehicle damage was reported in the Ovando area.
Saturday, July 13 just after 4 p.m. parts of Seeley Lake saw quarter-sized hail. Just after 10:30 p.m. Blackfoot Valley resident Kathy Schoendoerfer reported of half-dollar sized hail south of Ovando that dented the ranches truck roof. A friend of Schoendoerfer that lives in the Rock Creek drainage posted photos on Facebook of golf ball-sized hail that fell in the same storm. Other areas did not see any moisture.
While the community of Ovando avoided the hail, Schoendoerfer said that it received 0.5 inch of rain in about 15 minutes. Two more storms hit around 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. Sunday morning. From 8 a.m. Saturday – 8 a.m. Sunday, Ovando and the Blackfoot River received 0.75 inch of rain.
The Seeley Lake Ranger District reported 0.5 inches of rain over the weekend for Seeley Lake. According to the District's Fire Management Officer Phil Shelmerdine, the District received around 200 positive lightning strikes and significantly more negative lightning strikes.
According to http://wxbrad.com/, negative or positive lightning refers to the polarity of the lightning strike. Just like on any battery that has a + (positive) or – (negative) sign. The sign represents the type of charge that comes from that end.
With lightning this means there is a transfer of a negative charge from the cloud to the ground in negative lightning strikes. More then 90 percent of all lightning is negatively charged. A typical negative charged bolt is about 300,000,000 volts and 30,000 amps of power. Your typical household light bulb is about 120 volts and 12 Amps.
Positive lightning makes up only 5-10 percent of all lightning strikes. It can be up to 10 times stronger and last 10 times longer than a negative strike reaching 1 billion volts and 300,000 amps. Positive strikes are usually the cause of forest fires, house fires and damage to planes and power grids.
As of Monday, July 15, there was only one wildland fire start caused by the lightning. The fire in the Fawn Creek drainage was called in Saturday and grew to 0.1 acre. It is now on patrol.
Mount Morrell is staffed with a lookout and detection will continue to fly the area looking for new smokes.
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