Severe Weather Season Starts Early

Even though there is no official start or end to the severe weather season in South Dakota, it seems like it is starting early this year because its only March and we are having to deal with it. Since we show the Storm Prediction Center's (SPC) outlook for severe weather a lot on TV, I thought I would go into a little more depth on what it means exactly. There are three specific things that the SPC looks for; hail greater then 1" in diameter, winds stronger then 58 mph, and tornadoes. When they combine all of those aspects into one single probability, they get either a slight, moderate, or high risk. Well, the SPC outlooks are a little more detailed then what we show on air so I will go through those now. They (SPC) separates the classifications of severe weather out into three parts; the hail, high winds, and tornadoes. Below is the probability of seeing all three of them starting with hail, then wind, then tornadoes.These pictures depict the probability of seeing this type of severe weather within 25 miles of a point. For example, if you live in Sioux Falls and you stand on your driveway, there is a 30% chance that there will be at least one severe hail event within 25 miles of you.

Meanwhile, on the western side of the state, they will be dealing with blizzard conditions and measuring the snow in feet as portions of the black hills could get 40 inches of snow. If you are planning on traveling west river sometime before Thursday, I would consider just waiting until daybreak Thursday because it is pretty likely that roads will be closed later on tonight because of snow and blowing snow.

~KDLT Meteorologist Cody Matz