It Could Have Been Worse

You think the freezing fog across the southeast was impressive this morning, take a look at this. Rapid City and surrounding areas had some tremendous freezing fog just before Christmas that took quite a toll on that area. Here is what some severe freezing fog looks like.It is an incredibly beautiful site but extremely dangerous as it can bring down trees and power lines. But good news for today because the Rapid City area saw highs in the mid 40's, so no more freezing fog for them..... at least for the time being.

~KDLT Meteorologist Cody Matz

Freezing Fog and Rime

I'm not going to officially blame the light snow showers in Sioux Falls this morning on the fog, but it could be very well the cause of the flurries because the fog gave the atmosphere some moisture to work with that could have in turned caused the atmosphere to squeeze out some snow. If nothing else, the fog is the reason you're going to see a picturesque scene throughout the day today. Areas of patchy fog provided enough moisture in the air to give trees, plants and other objects a bit of a moist coating. Since it was cold enough this morning, some of that moisture froze and produced what we call "rime". So what exactly is rime? There's actually two different types: soft rime and hard rime.
Soft rime is basically white ice that's formed when water droplets suspended in fog freezes to the surface of an object, most of the time soft rime is found on the windward side (the side facing the wind, so today the southern side) of things. It looks like little ice needles or feathers and you can easily brush it off or shake it from trees and plants.
Hard rime is basically a more dense formation of soft rime but it doesn't shake off or brush off of objects as easily. Hard rime looks a little more like an ice-like layer cover the object.
In addition to that, the light snow showers fell (whether fog-induced or not) the snowflakes adhered to the moisture on the trees and plants and other objects creating a cool crystallizing effect show here in Sioux Falls this morning.

Enjoy the "rime" scenery!

~KDLT Meteorologist Jesse Ritka

Warm-up Still On Track

Dan showed you the surface temperatures into this week, so I'll show you temperatures at 850mb because that's what most impressive about this warm-up. It's great news for pretty much everyone, especially if you love your OJ in the morning. Florida will see one more cold day today (dark blues and fuchsias are those cold temperatures we had last week) before warming up later on. We're going to see those yellows and greens (warmer 850 temperatures) move into our area. Here's a look at today:
This is Tuesday, a bit warmer:
And finally, the warmest day, Wednesday:
If we didn't have as much snow on the ground as we do, our actual temperatures could warm up into the 40s! Too bad we got all that snow, 40s would feel nice after last week with high temperatures below zero.

Enjoy the warm-up and drier weather!
~KDLT Meteorologist Jesse Ritka

Records

We have some quiet weather out there this week, no major storms and average temperatures. So I thought I would show some averages and records for select cities in the viewing area. Keep in mind these are averages and records for the entire year.

Sioux Falls
Avg High: 57
Avg Low: 35
Record High: 110
Record Low: -36
Avg Precip: 25"
Avg Snowfall: 40"

Sioux City
Avg High: 59
Avg Low: 38
Record High: 108
Record Low: -26
Avg Precip: 26"
Avg Snowfall: 32"

Pierre
Avg High: 59
Avg Low: 36
Record High: 115
Record Low: -40
Avg Precip: 17"

Avg Snowfall: 32"

Aberdeen
Avg High: 55
Avg Low: 32
Record High: 112
Record Low: -45
Avg Precip: 19"

Avg Snowfall: 36"

Huron
Avg High: 57
Avg Low: 34
Record High: 112
Record Low: -43
Avg Precip: 20"
Avg Snowfall: 39"

Here's some other South Dakota extremes:

Highest Temp: 120 in Gannvalley back in 1936

Lowest Temp: -58 in McIntosh back in 1936

Wettest location in one year: Deadwood in 1946 with 48.42"

Sioux Falls wettest year: 1993 with 36.11"

Sioux Falls driest year: 1894 with 10.94"

Sioux Falls snowiest winter: 94.7" 1968/1969

United States extremes:

Highest Temp: 134 in Death Valley, CA (1913)

Lowest Temp: -80 in Prospect Creek, AK (1971)

Most rainfall in one rain season: 704" in Kukui, HI

Most snowfall in one snow season: 1140" in Mt. Baker, WA

Just thought some might like to see some extremes. Us weather people like this stuff!

~KDLT Meteorologist Dan Bronis

Warm Air to Stay!

After a week or so of such bitterly cold temperatures things are finally going to warm up to near or above average temperatures, and overnight lows, they will seem like highs to what we've been seeing! A warm front off to the east of Sioux Falls on Saturday night is responsible for the warm up. It's creating southerly winds that are bringing much warmer air into the region. When the warm front passes, then were in for a treat, with highs near 30. If there wasn't so much snow on the ground we could be talking about record highs, but when you've got 20 plus inches of snow covering the ground, it makes it difficult for air to warm quickly (Snow that evaporates into the atmosphere keeps temperatures lower due to the snowflake cooling off the air it surrounds).

Here's a models showing Sunday at 6pm, this model wants to put us at 30-35 degrees, but with that snow I'm forecasting 26 as a high. A degree above the average of 25 for this time of year.

This is for Tuesday at Noon. 30 to 35 degrees with some spots 35-40. This is very possible and at this point I'm going 29 for Tuesday and a high on Wednesday of 31. All models seem to be in alignment of the warmth and it doesn't seem to end throughout the next several days. Also a plus, no major storms effecting us either, maybe some light snow showers Sunday night, and Flurries possible Thursday, but at this point looks clear and warm the next week or so.

Enjoy the warmth and this might be the first sign of El Nino this year!

~KDLT Meteorologist Dan Bronis

Sorry for the Misleading Information!!!

It has been brought to my attention that we have posted some pictures on our last subject that were not what we thought they were. The photos at the end of our last post with all of the snow are supposedly from the Lead/Deadwood area but that doesn't appear to be true. They were sent to us by what we thought was a reliable source, but apparently that's not the case. I apologize for misleading everybody, which was not intended, and we will continue to do our best to get reliable information. But everybody makes mistakes from time to time so we will just use this as a learning experience and move on. Normally I would take the pictures off, however, it is such an amazing site to see that I am just going to leave them on there. I feel bad for the people in the pictures....... wherever they might live.

~KDLT Meteorologist Cody Matz

Cold Cartoons as Promised

Is anyone feeling like these people?A lot of cartoonists are taking advantage of this cold weather, and I mean COLD - check out the wind chills at 8am this morning... The cartoonists are trying to bring a little humor to our arcticly cold temperatures... hopefully they bring a little smile to you on this Friday:
~KDLT Meteorologist Jesse Ritka

Snow Totals and the Massive Cold Weather Outbreak

Well we are finally done with the snow for the time being and now we just have to endure the bitter cold. This has really been an epic couple of months. November was one of the warmest and driest on record. Then not a day into December temperatures plummet well below the average and stay there. Three blizzards and six weeks later and we are just half done with our winter season. Yikes!!

Here are the official snow totals from our third and hopefully last blizzard this year.

The good news with this whole event is that we are not alone. The snow has been flying from Billings, Montana to Atlanta, Georgia and all points in between. They have seen nearly a foot in Chicago already and its still snowing. Freezing rain and sleet have fallen across much of northern Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. And everyone east of the Rocky Mountains are seeing temperatures 20 to 40 degrees below average. Wind chill advisories and warnings extend from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and some areas of the south will see temperatures they haven't seen in decades. Here is a picture of the current winter warnings and advisories for the U.S. They represent areas that are seeing dangerously cold temperatures or wind chills as well as any kind of winter precipitation.
If that wasn't bad enough, here are the current wind chills for our area.Just remember with wind chills that low, frostbite can occur in 5 minutes so if you have to venture outside, put as many layers on as possible.

~KDLT Meteorologist Cody Matz