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I know one cannot be precise, but I was wondering what the weather is like in the Rapid City area in October and November. Thinking about coming up during that time frame. Will be in a motorhome, so was curious what it would be like. Anyone know if the campgrounds are still open during that period of time? Thanks.
October is pretty mild, maybe an average of 50s-60s. November is chilly with 40s-50s. Snow is possible in both months. Temps could be either 70 or 30, you just never know.
October is mild. But we ALWAYS have bad weather, rain or snow, on Halloween night! Then it's start to stay cold and winter'ish. But if it snows, it melts quick. I can't remember a snow storm in Nov that was more than 2-3 inches, that stayed for days.
Keep in mind, it can be 25 degrees overnight and snow, but warm up to 50 by noon.
I would be more concerned with November. There are some years that November can be nasty, more so in the eastern parts of the state such as Sioux Falls, Yankton, Vermillion, Huron, Aberdeen, Watertown, Mitchell, and Brookings.
Sometimes, we can get icy/snowy weather in October. This normally happens once every few years. I can remember the Halloween night of 1991, when it was blizzarding and I was trick or treating with my younger brother. My younger brother lost half of his candy in the snow. School was called off the next day and got to go sledding down the little hill behind our house. I can remember it being snowy in October in 1990, 2002 (snowy/slick roads), and one or two other times in the 1990s (most of our winters were on the mild side in the past 15 years with the exception for 1996-1997, 2000-2001, and 2007-2008 winters (from what I remember).
Normally, snow does not stick around for too long in Rapid City and most areas of the hills and it goes away a lot quicker than in the eastern half of the state.
OH, yah, like Chris said. My answer before his was pertaining to the Rapid City area.
Rapid City and Sioux Falls have TOTALLY different weather patterns. Sioux Falls can get dumped with snow.
Sometimes, Rapid City gets dumped on too or gets snow while Sioux Falls and Southeastern SD or the I-29 corridor may get rain. A few years ago, this was common. When I was in Vermillion, it was wiered that it rained in Vermillion and Sioux Falls along with Brookings and places north of Beresford would get dumped on with snow (Vermillion/Yankton/Sioux City were usually five degrees warmer than Sioux Falls in the winter).
One needs to be on the cautious side if it is raining and it is in the mid 30s for temperature, especially in November. In Vermillion, I can remember it raining for several days in early November (starting out in the 60s and dropping in temps) and it became much colder and everything turned into a skating rink and had a a good foot of snow on top of that. It was scary driving around. I drove from Sioux Falls to Vermillion at the time (going slow) and slid into the median (thank goodness that I was safe and my car did not get damaged other than the muffler) and seen dozens of cars in the ditch and semis jackknifed on the interstate. A very scary experience and that is why I am very cautious when the road conditions are bad.
Most of the time, October is not bad. There may be a few times where the weather may be quirky. November can be unpredictable and it varies from year to year. Rapid City and/or Sioux Falls can get slammed, have smooth sailing, or somewhere in between. If I travelled, I would rather travel in this part of the country in October, given that weather in October is generally more favorable for travel than in November.
I forgot in the prior post that we had snow in October of 2006, although it was not a significant amount. I was not there and was in Missouri. Wierd to hear that it was snowing in SD when it was in the 50s or so in Missouri.
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