Sioux Falls Warm Weather Streak Has Cool Down Periods
When you look strictly at the calendar, the Sioux Falls area is on a long above normal temperature streak. A closer look shows different timing would have broken the chain multiple times.
Please don’t misunderstand, there have been some warm weather stretches since August of 2015. However when you take a random 30-day chunk out last year and a half, there has been some colder weather.
As we bring back the KDLT Chief Meteorologist Brandon Spinner formula, “Add every high temperature and every low temperature of the month together. Then divide it by (2 times the number of days so far in the month) Example 2,500 degrees / (2 x 25 days) = average temp of 50 degrees.”
Three 30-day areas match the below normal temperature threshold. If you want to get technical, you could shift these examples a few days in either direction and still make it. For this purpose it’s the best samples.
December 27, 2015-January 25 2016
- Normal Average Temperature: 16.6 degrees
- Actual Average Temperature: 14.2 degrees
Special note: If not for extremely warm overnight temperatures over the last four days of January 2016, that month would have been below normal overall.
April 22 – May 21, 2016
- Normal Average Temperature: 53.2
- Actual Average Temperature: 51.7
A late April chill down (sorry Kingswood rummagers) and another in mid-May got the growing season off to a chilly beginning. A warming trend toward the end of the month brought the numbers back above normal for May.
June 20 – July 19, 2016
- Normal Average Temperature: 72.4
- Actual Average Temperature: 71.7
The cool feeling during the first month of summer didn’t last long. Some 90 plus days and warm nights late that July brought the actuals just over the bar again.
With snow to start on May 1 of 2017 (a record 3.5 inches), Sioux Falls will start out cold. We shall see if the recovery arrives or if the streak is over.
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