The Erik Files: Talk about a swing in the weather pendulum!

**ON THIS DATE IN 1979: A tornado hit west of St. Francis causing an estimated $250,000 in damage.**

WOW! That’s all I have to say about the past 48 hours is just WOW! We hit a high of 104° in Rapid City, breaking the old record of 101° set back in 1978, and now we have to worry about breaking a record on the other end of the temperature pendulum, and for the first time this season, I broke out a sweatervest! (Read below to see the meaning of the Sweatervest.)

My wife (who from here on out will be known as Mrs. Dean) and stepdaughter arrived into town Saturday, and we started making Rapid City our home by unpacking our belongings. I told her Saturday when it was around 95 degrees outside that portions of the area could see snow Monday – Tuesday, I think she was ready to get back in the car and drive back. When there’s cold, and snowy weather in the forecast, I get “The Look” as she isn’t a fan of winter weather.

HERE ARE THE FORECAST DETAILS:
First of all: we had a high of 60 today, but you wouldn’t have known it unless you were up at midnight. The temperatures have been falling since Midnight as that cooler air is now rushing into the Black Hills Region. Take a look at the past few hours here in Rapid City as an example:

And that falling trend will continue for next several hours. Here’s a sneak peek at the rest of the day:

IN TERMS OF ADVISORIES
Please pay attention to the timing as different advisories have different expiration times:

WINTER STORM WARNING
Western Pennington County, Western Custer County, and Southern and Central Lawrence County in SD, and Portions of Crook & Weston County in Northeast Wyoming. Your Winter Storm Warning will start @ 6:00 PM tonight, and go until Noon tomorrow.

Big Horn Mountain Range: Your Winter Storm Warning is in effect right now, and goes until 9:00 AM Tuesday

WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY:

Johnson County, your Winter Weather Advisory starts at 6:00 PM tonight, and goes until 9:00 AM Tuesday

Southern Campbell County, your Winter Weather Advisory starts at 9:00 PM tonight, and goes until 12:00 PM Tuesday

ESTIMATED SNOWFALL TOTALS:
This is what we are thinking in terms of accumulation

AFTER TUESDAY:

The good news is, we are warming up again. Here’s a look at your 7 Day Forecast, and look at that weekend! We are going back into the 70’s! Mid 70’s on Saturday, and upper 70’s – low 80’s on Sunday with an abundant amount of sunshine!

THE STORY BEHIND THE SWEATERVEST: I briefly touched base on this in an earlier blog post. Now it’s going on starting today, I figured I would explain. This was a mere coincidence at first.

At my last station, there were a few times where I wore a sweatervest on air. I didn’t catch as to when I wore it, but I had a viewer ask me if I only break out the Sweatervest when there’s a Winter Storm Watch, or Winter Storm Warning out for the area. At first it wasn’t the case, but then that became the thing, so whenever you see me wearing a Sweatervest, that means there’s a nice amount of snow in the forecast somewhere in the viewing area.

DON’T FORGET: Make sure you have the NewsCenter1 Weather App downloaded so you get the latest information! It’s free on your App Store, as well as the Play Store.

Enjoy your Labor Day!

-Erik Dean
Meteorologist
Facebook: /ErikDeanWX
Twitter: @ErikDeanWX