Winter Weather — Hand, South Dakota

2025-04-01 to 2025-04-02 · Hand, South Dakota

Event narrative

A single vehicle crash resulted in a fatality 1 mile west of Wessington on highway 14 due to icy conditions on the morning of April 2nd. The vehicle left the road and landed in a ditch where it rolled. The COOP observer 2 miles southeast of Wessington recorded 3 inches of snow early on April 1st, which would see partial melting during the day as temperatures warmed into the mid 30s before falling below freezing overnight.

Wider weather episode

A system to the south looped up into Minnesota, generating a band of heavy snow and strong winds across mainly northeast South Dakota, with a lull and partial melting before wrap around precipitation and a re-freeze resulted in additional ice and snowfall. Heavy snow and ice created slick roads and at times near-blizzard conditions. This led to a vehicle collision and fatality near the town of Milbank, while another fatality occurred on icy roads in Hand County. In Day County, icy roads caused a driver to slide into a recently opened pond. Numerous additional slide-ins and vehicle accidents were documented during this event. Snowfall amounts topped out at 12 inches in Waubay and Summit, 11 inches in Milbank and 10 inches at the National Weather Service in Aberdeen.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1238916. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.