High winds, heavy rain, hail and an eerie green sky blow through parts of South Dakota

High winds, heavy rain and hail caused damage across parts of South Dakota on Tuesday afternoon and evening.

A large line of thunderstorms that developed in Montana on Tuesday morning tracked all the way across the state of South Dakota from the northwest to the southeast.

Mike Gillispie is a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Sioux Falls. He said the storms intensified in strength as they reached into the eastern part of the state.

"We had a lot of reports of 40 to 60 mile an hour winds ahead of the storm, but we did have some 60 to over 90 mile an hour winds that occurred right behind the line of storms," Gillispie said.

Gillispie said the storm will likely be categorized as a derecho — defined as a widespread, long-lived, straight-line wind storm. Derechos can cause hurricane-force winds, tornadoes, heavy rains and flash floods.

But it wasn't the wind and hail that made the storm unique. A bright green hue filled the sky as the storm approached the eastern part of the state.

"It's a sign of either really huge raindrops or hail, and it's just the way the the light is refracted, you know bent and like a prism as it goes through the water drop or through the ice in the hail," Gillespie said.

Gillispie said more than 4 inches of rain fell from the Huron area to the northwest of Sioux Falls.