Hail hits Seeley Lake, damages property

SEELEY LAKE – Seeley Lake resident Tripp Mincey and his family were enjoying a beautiful afternoon fishing on Seeley Lake Friday, July 8. They were watching a storm brewing to the west but it looked like it was going to head north. Their weather apps said the main storm was not going to hit until 7 p.m.

"I said you know what, I think we are about to get hammered. We need to get out of here," Mincey said. "We were by the Seeley Campground and as we were headed across the lake looking back you could see it coming."

Friday around 4:30 p.m. golf ball sized hail pummeled the waters of Seeley Lake and and surrounding area for around 10 minutes. Residents in town reported the storm "sounded like a freight train coming and trees cracking." The cracking was the hail crashing into metal, leaving dented roofs, vehicles and broken windows in its wake.

Mincey said they were among several folks out on the water when the storm rolled in. Having a lot of practice, Mincey said they only took a few minutes to load their boat at Big Larch boat launch. They made it into their vehicle or took cover under the boat canopy just as the hail hit.

"We just watched it happen. There was nothing we could do," Mincey said. "We couldn't drive away."

Mincey said there was another really nice ski boat with four people that pulled in behind them.

"He was out trying to get his boat on the trailer when the hail hit. He took the brunt of it," Mincey said. "He was shirtless and was beat up by that hail. It looked like he had been riddled with paintballs on his back."

Mincey said some of the hail that fell at Big Larch Campground was cone shaped. Others were round and slightly larger than golf balls. Two-inch hail was reported in Seeley Lake on hailspecialists.com, a nationwide provider of auto hail damage repair.

In town 1 – 1.5-inch hail was reported. Many posts on social media reported damage including cracked windshields, dents and damaged trailers and boats.

Many long time residents agree that they have never seen hail this size in their 40+ years. However, Mincey remembers in 2005 there was another hailstorm like this in Seeley Lake. The insurance company would have totaled his wife's Alero but they did the bodywork and fixed it.

In this storm, hail cracked Mincey's windshield and he estimated several hundred dents in his truck on all the panels. It also cracked the window on the boat and filled it with pine needles, sticks and other debris.

"I try to keep my truck real nice but I don't even like looking at my truck right now," Mincey said. "Just our material things got beat up and our nice day on the lake got cut short. It was crazy."