National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Excessive Rainfall Potential for the Southeast; Heat Expands for Center of the Nation; Critical Fire Weather for Pacific Northwest

Flash flooding threatens areas from the Tennessee Valley to the Carolinas as storms repeat along a stalled front. Monsoonal storms may trigger flooding in the Southwest. Dangerous heat expands across the Desert Southwest, Plains, mid-Mississippi Valley and Southern Tier. Critical fire weather for interior Pacific Northwest. Cooler, drier air brings brief relief to the Great Lakes and Northeast. Read More >

Below is a listing of the climate records on New Year's Day for Rapid City, Gillette, Lead, Winner, Lemmon, Sundance, Spearfish, Newcastle, Hot Springs, and Custer. Record high temperatures have reached the 50s to mid-60s. Of these sites, Lemmon has been the coldest, dipping down to -31 degrees in 1928. In 1970, Lead had a whopping 35 inches of snow on the ground.

Also listed is the weather data for the past ten New Year's Days in Rapid City and Gillette. Very little snow has fallen on January 1st for the past decade, though minor accumulations of snow occurred in 2022 and 2023. Temperatures on New Year's Day in 2022 were very chilly, with highs in the single digits to teens and lows below zero. Last year, we experienced a relatively mild and dry January 1st.