Nature lights up the skies over Winnipeg early Friday. (Photo submitted by Dan Harper)

Unsettled weather led the skies to open up across southern Manitoba for the second night in a row, with gusty winds, thunder, lightning, rain and, in some areas, baseball-sized hail.

Hail was reported across a wide swath of the province overnight Thursday and into Friday.

Severe weather warnings continued late Friday for areas southeast of Winnipeg.

Faith Loewen, near Domain, southwest of Winnipeg, said the hail was nearly three inches in diameter and coming down hard.

Loonie-sized hail fell in Winnipeg early Friday. (Photo submitted by Jeff Malcovish)

"It was coming at a very sharp angle, almost horizontal," Loewen said. "And when it hit the ground it would rebound and hit again, because it was hitting so hard. And the leaves were being carried to our house by the hail. So it was coming down pretty hard."

A Manitoba Hydro spokesman said severe weather knocked out power to about 4,000 customers in the St. Boniface and St. Vital neighbourhoods of the Manitoba capital. Crews worked on the problem and power was restored.

Baseball-sized hail fell in Sanford, Man. (Photo submitted by Jennifer Wiebe)

There was property damage caused by large, pounding hail. The Crown-owned provincial insurance company — Manitoba Public Insurance Corp. — reported more than 1,100 hail damage claims early Friday. The majority of those damaged-vehicle claims were in Winnipeg, Dauphin and Brandon areas. In 2007 a furious hail storm in the Dauphin area precipitated 14,000 claims, and MPIC paid out $53-million to vehicle owners for hail damage.

Historically, in the Winnipeg area, one of biggest hail storms was in July 1996, when there were 24,000 claims for hail damaged vehicles, resulting in a $53-million payout by the publicly owned insurer.

Early Friday in the community of Sanford, just west of Winnipeg, fist-sized hail caused damage to buildings and vehicles. There was no word on crop damage, but a golf course in LaSalle was especially hard hit with greens pockmarked by heavy hail.

The electric utility said there still were some scattered power outages across southern Manitoba affecting customers near Niverville and Steinbach.