SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO.com) - - We’re still deep into winter, but our area has some strange weather headed our way for the weekend. Sioux Falls can expect heavy rain starting Sunday afternoon into Sunday night.
Forecaster Travis Tarver says in eastern South Dakota, it’ll be warm enough where we’ll be getting rain rather than snow.
“We’ll have a lot of warm air moving into the region,” Tarver said. “It may turn into freezing drizzle by Sunday night, but it looks to be mostly rain.”
Eastern South Dakota is dodging the powerful storm that will impact other parts of the state over the weekend. The National Weather Service has already issued a Winter Storm Watch for western South Dakota from Sunday afternoon thru late Monday night.
It includes places like Lemmon, Faith, Belle Fourche, Wall and Philip, where blizzard conditions are possible and up to eight inches of snow could fall.
But that snowy mix could reach eastern South Dakota by Monday night.
“Colder air will spread eastward across South Dakota on Monday,” Tarver said. “You could have moderate to heavy snow accumulations on Monday night. The snow amounts are still kind of uncertain because we’re still three days away from when that snow starts Monday night.”
Tarver says it looks like western North Dakota will be in the bullseye for this storm. That’s where forecasters are talking about the potential for up to 14 inches of snow.
(Mike Tanner, KWAT, contributed to this report)