South Dakota has some serious summer storms! The wind here is intense and can last for days. And the summer thunderstorms have just as much lightning as a Florida summer storm - possibly even more.
This was the radar on the evening of June 12, 2022. Thankfully that little break in the middle is what passed right over us. That is an insane amount of lightning!
Then on the evening of June 13, 2022, I received this alert on my phone and we were pretty scared:
We've been in a few hail storms in South Dakota but the hail was pretty small. But we know hail can be very damaging here - look around when you are driving around the state and you will see cars and RVs peppered from hail damage. The car dealerships here have covered areas for the new cars to protect the new cars from hail damage!
Not long after that alert came up on my phone, we heard the South Dakota warning sirens. These sirens warn you of impending danger from high winds, tornadoes or large hail. We both calmly put on some clothes (not our bed clothes - it was around 9:30pm and we had been getting ready for bed) and good shoes just in case. James was surprisingly calm and we were both trying to stay calm, too. But deep down I was scared!
Looking at the radar, the storm didn't look so bad. And it was all north of us, thankfully:
It appeared that things were going to be okay and the worst of the storm would stay north of us. We went outside (and left James inside since he is afraid of storms) to check with the neighbors and see what everyone was doing - were they heading to the storm shelter? Or staying in their RVs? They all agreed that we wouldn't get much of a storm. But it sure did look awful up in Hot Springs:
The night of this storm, June 13, 2022, is also the same day that an unprecedented flood hit Yellowstone National Park. It is scary to think they were all part of the same system of weather that day.
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