New Years Day Weather

New Year’s Day Climate Information

Below is a listing of the climate records on New Year's Day for Rapid City, Lead, Gillette, Winner, and Lemmon. Of these sites, Winner has reached the warmest temperature on New Year's Day, which was 64 degrees in 1998. Lemmon has been the coldest, dipping down to -31 degrees in 1928. Lead receives snow more than the other sites, with snowfall occurring about 1/3 of the time on New Year's Day. In 1970, Lead had a whopping 35 inches on the ground. Also listed is the weather data for the past 10 New Year's Days at the Rapid City Airport. Notice that precipitation--and even snow depth--has been scarce on January 1st for the past decade. On the first day of 2012, temperatures were slightly cooler than average, with no precipitation or snow depth.

Temperature (°F)	Rapid City*	Lead	Gillette	Winner	Lemmon
Highest	64 (1998, 1939)	54 (1997, 1964)	51 (1997)	64 (1998)	58 (1998)
Lowest	-22 (1924)	-25 (1928, 1911)	-28 (1928)	-23 (1928)	-31 (1928)
Average High	37	36	35	34	28
Average Low	14	17	13	12	8
Precipitation (in.)	Rapid City	Lead	Gillette	Winner	Lemmon
Max Precip.	0.28 (1970)	0.72 (1970)	0.30 (1906)	0.65 (1941)	0.36 (1976)
Days Measured Precip.	21 times or 17%	35 times or 34%	23 times or 21%	13 times or 13%	14 times or 14%
Max Snowfall	3.4 (1970)	12.2 (1996)	3.5 (1960)	6.0 (1976, 1937)	4.0 (1976)
Days Measured Snow	18 times or 15%	33 times or 32%	23 times or 21%	11 times or 11%	11 times or 11%
Max Snow Depth	7 (1976)	35 (1970)	8 (1968)	19 (1952)	22 (2010)
Year Records Began	Rapid City	Lead	Gillette	Winner	Lemmon
Temp. and Precip.	1888	1909	1902	1910	1909
Snow Depth	1947	1948	1948	1948	1909

*Data for Rapid City was compiled from the office’s three locations: the original downtown Weather Bureau Office (WBO) data goes from 1888-1942; the office moved to the airport in 1942, and relocated to East Rapid City in 1995. Average highs and lows were calculated based on averaging those of the three different sites.

Weather at the Rapid City Airport on the Last 10 New Year’s Days
Year	High Temperature (°F)	Low Temperature (°F)	Average Temperature (°F)	Precipitation (in.)	Snowfall (in.)	Snow Depth (in.)
2012	33	12	22.5	0.00	0.0	0
2011	15	-2	6.5	Trace	Trace	2
2010	9	1	5.0	Trace	Trace	2
2009	35	14	24.5	Trace	Trace	0
2008	27	5	16.0	0.00	0.0	Trace
2007	43	11	27.0	0.00	0.0	Trace
2006	31	24	27.5	0.03	Trace	Trace
2005	19	2	10.5	Trace	Trace	0
2004	50	27	38.5	0.00	0.0	0
2003	44	14	29.0	Trace	0.0	0

National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office