St. Patrick's Day Weather

St. Patrick's Day Climate Information

The following tables show the climate information for Rapid City, Lead, Gillette, Winner, and Lemmon on St. Patrick’s Day, as well as the weather at the Rapid City Airport for the past 10 St. Patrick’s Days. Average highs around the area on March 17th are in the 40s, with average lows in the 20s. Last year was a record-breaking St. Patrick’s Day: Rapid City (both the airport and office locations), Lead, Winner, and Lemmon set record high temperatures. Significant amounts of snow have fallen around the area on St. Patrick’s Day in certain years, but the past several years have been fairly dry at the Rapid City Airport.

Temperature (F)	Rapid City*	Lead	Gillette	Winner	Lemmon
Highest	78 (2012)	69 (2012)	91 (1916)	85 (2012)	78 (2012)
Lowest	-8 (1902)	-12 (1965)	-10 (1943)	0 (1943)	-8 (1965)
Average High	47	44	48	48	44
Average Low	23	24	24	24	21
Precipitation (in.)	Rapid City	Lead	Gillette	Winner	Lemmon
Max Precip.	0.70 (1971)	0.60 (1971)	0.70 (2003)	1.40 (1987)	0.54 (1982)
Days Measured Precip.	39 times or 31%	44 times or 43%	27 times or 25%	17 times or 17%	16 times or 16%
Max Snowfall	6.8 (1971)	8.0 (1971)	6.2 (1989)	5.0 (1987)	4.0 (1982)
Days Measured Snow	31 times or 25%	36 times or 35%	18 times or 16%	7 times or 7%	8 times or 8%
Max Snow Depth	15 (1963)	34 (1998)	6 (2002)	15 (1962)	13 (1944)
Year Records Began	1888	1909	1902	1910	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 St. Patrick’s Days
Year	High Temperature (F)	Low Temperature (F)	Average Temperature (F)	Precipitation (in.)	Snowfall (in.)	Snow Depth (in.)
2012	79	42	60.5	0.00	0.0	0
2011	53	34	43.5	0.02	0.0	0
2010	70	27	48.5	0.00	0.0	0
2009	53	29	41.0	0.00	0.0	0
2008	51	21	36.0	0.00	0.0	1
2007	64	31	47.5	0.00	0.0	0
2006	35	13	24.0	0.00	0.0	4
2005	40	25	32.5	Trace	Trace	0
2004	59	35	47.0	0.09	Missing	Missing
2003	52	34	43.0	0.47	Missing	Missing

National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office