High Wind in Hand, South Dakota

The South Dakota Department of Transportation mesonet station 5 miles east of Orient recorded a peak wind gust of 62 mph at 337 am. Later that morning, at approximately 10 am, high winds were responsible for blowing a trailer off a truck on Highway 45, 8 miles southeast of Polo.

A system brought strong winds to the region, with a band of snow across the northeast South Dakota. This resulted in blizzard conditions with widespread travel impacts from the early morning through the afternoon of February 18.

Peak winds associated with the system included a gust measuring 72 mph by a mesonet station owned by a trained spotter in Faulkton, a 71 mph gust recorded by the South Dakota Department of Transportation (SDDOT) Road Weather Information System (RWIS) 4 miles north of Altamont (Deuel county) and a 67 mph gusts measured by the SDDOT RWIS 7 miles east of Clark. 47 additional weather stations would record a peak wind gust at or in excess of 58 mph.

The Andover and Westport COOP observers reported blizzard or ground blizzard conditions at the time of their observations.

Not much overall snowfall occurred with the system, but within the band snowfall averaged about 4 inches with the COOP observers in Westport and Clark reporting a total of 4.1 and 4.0 inches of snowfall respectively. Additionally, the National Weather Service office just outside the Aberdeen Regional Airport measured 3.7 inches.