National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Inclement Weather in the Pacific Northwest; Heavy Rain and Thunderstorms in Southern Texas

A series of cold fronts will continue to bring periods of gusty winds, low elevation rainfall, and high elevation snow to the Pacific Northwest this week. Heavy to excessive rainfall may produce areas of flooding over southern Texas through Monday morning. Additionally, strong to locally severe thunderstorms may produce isolated damaging winds and maybe a brief tornado across parts of south Texas. 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.