Saturday,  February 2, 2013 • Vol. 13--No. 198 • 12 of 36 •  Other Editions

Today in Weather History

1960: Heavy icing from freezing rain accumulations form the afternoon of the 2nd to the afternoon of the 3rd occurred mainly across the eastern half of the state. Severe damage to power lines and telephone service occurred in the Watertown and Wessington Springs area. Ice coatings of up to 3 inches thick and having an estimated weight of nine pounds per foot of wire formed around telephone and some power lines over a wide area of the eastern counties. A 300 foot tower high collapsed at Wessington Springs and in some areas utility wires were completely down for stretches of 2 to 3 miles. Some 170 long distance telephone circuits were knocked out in larger cities and 19 towns from Bonesteel on south to Watertown on north were completely without telephone service for two to three days after the storm. Many highways were treacherous and numerous vehicles collided or slid off the road into the ditch. Many schools were also closed.

2003: Widespread freezing rain developed across parts of central and into northeast South Dakota through the late night hours producing significant icing of a quarter to a half inch by the late morning hours. No significant tree damage or power outages occurred. Although, travel was greatly disrupted with many accidents and vehicles sliding off the road. The freezing rain changed over to snow during the mid morning hours and became heavy with 6 to 9 inches of snow accumulating before it ended in the late evening. Some snowfall amounts included, 6 inches at Ree Heights, Miller, and Faulkton, 7 inches at Clear Lake, 8 inches at Bryant, and 9 inches at Milbank.

2011: Blizzard conditions developed along and east of the Sisseton Hills late on February 2nd and continued into the mid morning hours of February 3rd. Strong southwest winds of 30 to 40 mph gusting to around 55 mph picked up the existing snow cover causing blizzard conditions which wreaked havoc along Interstate-29. Whiteout conditions and heavy drifting brought traffic to a halt along a stretch of Interstate-29 from north of Wilmot to Sisseton. One-hundred fifty to two-hundred vehicles were stranded along this stretch. A full scale rescue operation ensued during the night and continued into the next day. Interstate-29 was closed from Watertown to the North Dakota border as it took most of the day to clean up all of the stalled vehicles. There were also many accidents along the stretch of the interstate with many people stranded for up to twelve hours. There were also many other people stranded on secondary roads who had to be rescued. No injuries occurred as a re

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