Steve Fleegel

Ready for 10 hours of heavy metal. Let’s go! 🤘

I’m so sorry.

Quite the swing in temperatures from this week to next week. I guess it was only three more weeks of winter.

We normally have ample snow on the ground/roads throughout January. Seen very little snow this year.

Took advantage of today’s warm weather and took my first January motorcycle ride. Took 14 years to do and was worth it to get out on the road.

Aberdeen’s last 50 degree day in January was in 2018. Looks like we’ll have a couple opportunities this week, especially since the EC Det/EPS tend to run a touch low around here on above normal temperature days in the winter.

While still a long ways out, here’s the 12/9 12Z GEFS probability of 1” of snow depth for Christmas morning (and the individual members). Overall, low chances (<30%) for most of SD.

This evening’s NBM snowfall probabilities for the Dakotas on Monday evening through Wednesday afternoon. Not a lot of change over the last 12 hours, but still a lot of uncertainty on where/if snow occurs.

Brief gap in the cirrus in Aberdeen, SD to capture Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS).

A little gap in the clouds allowed for aurora viewing in Aberdeen, SD.

Sentinel satellite imagery of Wednesday’s fire along the ND/SD border (north of McLaughlin, SD). #SDwx #NDwx

Concert 2 of 3 this weekend in the books. Another great show and company. Green Day played Dookie and American Idiot in full, along with a good opener from Smashing Pumpkins.

Concert 1 of 3 this weekend and it didn’t disappoint. First time in the Snake Pit and it was amazing. Here’s a few pics while waiting in the parking garage.

And here’s some more mammatus shots from just about 30 minutes later

Impressive mammatus over Aberdeen this morning.

Beautiful day at the lake

A few more pictures from yesterday’s eclipse

Great to see totality again!! Such an amazing experience.

Aberdeen, SD has only received 10” of snow this winter season (1st image). Based on 01Z 3/19 NBM probabilities (2nd image), there’s about a 50% chance of getting that during the Saturday-Monday period! And that doesn’t even include the potential snow on Thursday.

And here’s a look at Aberdeen’s seasonal snowfall and snow depth. The warmth over the last week has reduced our snow depth to a trace.

With the January average temperature ending up 2.5°F above normal, Aberdeen is currently sitting at 7.2°F above normal for the Dec-Jan period (9th warmest). This matches expectations from the strength of the El Niño and it doesn’t look like things will change in February.

Really looking forward to the weather over the next 2 weeks. Will be interesting to see how quickly we lose our 2” snow depth. When we do, and if we avoid winds off the deeper snowpack to our south-southwest, hitting 50 is possible around the end of the month.

And for 2023 as a whole, Aberdeen, SD was 1.1° above normal, which was the 22nd warmest year on record (since 1893). Impressive to do after a really cold March and start of April.

December 2023 was the second warmest December on record in Aberdeen, SD (warmest in 1894). The average temperature was 11.7° above normal and we only had 3 days that were below normal (all barely below).

After several hours of sleet here in Aberdeen, freezing rain has really increased over the last 30-45 minutes. Here’s a look out our north facing window.

With a moderate to strong El Niño expected this winter, how does it impact Aberdeen’s weather? We generally tend to be warm (60% of the time) and dry (76% of the time), based on our 25 El Niño winters. In fact, 5 out of the top 6 warmest winters occurred during an El Niño.

November 2023 continued the trend of above normal temperatures in Aberdeen, SD, with the average temperature departure in November similar to meteorological Fall (between 3-4 degrees above normal). November 2023 was the 4th straight above normal month.

While the hunting was slow this weekend, each morning provided a different sunrise near Bristol, SD.

It’s been a warm start to October in Aberdeen, SD, with all-time warmest October hourly temperatures set for most hours (since 1948). This morning (10/3) has been eclipsing warm temperatures set a day or two earlier.