Snow in Sioux Falls Friday Wasn’t the First Snowfall This Year

October snow is not abnormal. It is not something that would be unexpected in a given year. Except when the snow wasn't in the forecast and all of a sudden it's snowing like mad.

But that snow, which was the first I had seen this year, was not the first snowfall of the year. The earliest snowfall of this 2020 - 2021 winter season set a new record for the earliest snowfall for Sioux Falls.

On September 9, 2020, the Sioux Falls airport got a trace of snow. It wasn't measurable, nor was the snow we got on Friday, but it was still snow.

The previous record had stood for 91 years before being broken this year. Sioux Falls got a trace of snow on September 18, 1929.

The heaviest early season snow was a memorable one. The Halloween Blizzard of 1991 ended with 11.2 inches. I was a freshman in high school at Beresford and we were playing Flandreau that night. There were about 20 people in attendance, not counting coaches, players, and officials. That was a nutty year for football weather. The following game we played at 2 pm in the afternoon because the daytime high that day was only 5.

The largest snowfall of over an inch of snow in October happened on October 1, 1999. The airport got 2.7 inches that day.

The biggest snowfall we have been cursed with before December only happened five years ago. On November 20, 2015 parts of southern Sioux Falls received up to 18 inches of snow. Meanwhile, the airport only got 7.2 inches.