National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Fire Weather Concerns for the Plains; Record Warmth Spreads

Dry and breezy conditions prevail across the High Plains where elevated to locally critical conditions continue through Thursday. Meanwhile, record warmth increases and spreads across the South, Southwest and into southern California into this last weekend of February. Meanwhile, a fast moving system moves across the Plains then off the mid-Atlantic by Thursday evening. Read More >

  After two consecutive summers of not reaching 100 degrees at Pierre, the temperature finally reached and surpassed the century mark on July 17th.  At 153 pm CDT on July 17th, the temperature at Pierre topped out at 106 degrees.  It was on September 4th, 2007 (nearly 3 years) when Pierre last reached the century mark when the temperature topped out at 101 degrees. Mobridge has also reached the 100 degree mark this summer which occurred on June 30th.

Recall that last year, Pierre failed to reach 100 degrees in back to back summers (2008 and 2009).  This had never occurred before at Pierre since records have been kept (records in Pierre date back to 1933).  In an average summer, Pierre would normally record a high temperature at or above 100 degrees about 9 times.  In addition, since 1933, there has only been one other year (1993) when temperatures have failed to reach 100 degrees.  Thus, failing to reach this temperature milestone in two consecutive summers was quite a rare event.  It has also been over three years since Aberdeen, Watertown, and Wheaton have reached the 100 degree mark. Listed below are the dates when the temperatures last reached 100 degrees at these three locations.
·         Aberdeen (102F):  July 7, 2007 
·         Watertown (100F): July 7, 2007  
·         Wheaton (100F): - July 8, 2007