A line of thunderstorms swept across Manitoba's south and Interlake regions on Wednesday evening, hitting cottage country as well as Winnipeg.

Nickel-sized hail and nearly 90 millimetres of rain fell in Riverton, Man., while golf ball-sized hail was reported in Peguis and Grand Marais.

A tree is uprooted in Riverton, knocked over by the Aug. 1 storm. (James Rinn/CBC)

The latter was also walloped by winds gusting to 143 kilometres an hour.

"I've never seen anything like it. It was the hail that just would not stop," said Penny Patzer, who lives in Grand Marais.

"Usually we get a hailstorm and it comes and it goes but this one it was just like a snowfall — it was just white outside. It lasted forever."

Grand Marais is located near Grand Beach Provincial Park on the east shore of Lake Winnipeg.

In Riverton, Wayne Furgala said he was at the local Co-op when he got caught in the storm, which he described as the worst he has seen in the six decades he has been living there.

A boulevard tree fell on Maryland Street near Broadway, crushing part of a fence, during an evening thunderstorm on Aug. 1. (Tyson Koschik/CBC)

"It was really wicked … [I] looked outside and it almost looked like it was snowing out," Furgala said.

"It was so white, dark and white — you know, the rain and hail — [and] you could hear the hail hitting the rooftop."

Furgala said the streets of Riverton were flooded after a half-hour downpour, while hail damaged some vehicles, trees were uprooted and power lines went down.

"The neighbours there, their trees were uprooted — real tall trees, almost pushing the grass up and everything, and lots of branches broken," he said.

Some areas affected by the storms were without electricity for up to eight hours, but power has since been restored.

Manitoba Hydro crews worked through Wednesday night and Thursday to remove trees that knocked down power lines.

In the city of Winnipeg, the wind was much less and the rain didn't pound as hard, but there was still enough of an impact to down some branches and trees left weakened by the vicious storm on Sunday.

With files from the CBC's Nelly Gonzalez