This Day in Weather History: April 5th

Weather History - April 5th

Local and Regional Events:

April 5th, 2000:

High winds of 35 to 50 mph, gusting to around 70 mph, blew across central and north-central South Dakota from the late morning to the late afternoon hours. As a result, several trees and many tree branches were downed, many structures, roofs, billboards, and road signs were damaged, a few mobile homes were overturned, and some power outages occurred. The high winds made driving challenging, stirring up dirt at some locations and causing visibilities to drop to near zero. Some detours and traffic collisions resulted from low visibility in blowing dirt. Airborne objects broke some windows across the area. One house had all of the windows on the front porch blown out. Also, a few semi-trailers were tipped over by the high winds. Wind gusts included 60 mph at Pierre, 63 mph at Kennebec, 64 mph at Mobridge, 65 mph at Pollock, and 71 mph at McLaughlin. The high winds and arid conditions combined with downed and arcing electrical lines, out-of-control burns, and smoldering embers from previous fires resulted in several grassfires across central and north central South Dakota. Several thousand acres of grassland, hundreds of hay bales and haystacks, and some trees and fences were burned. Also, the smoke from some of these fires created low visibility and difficult road driving conditions.