Weather

As some of you already know, I ride a Can-Am Spyder which is a motorcycle that is a inverse trike (two wheels in front, one wheel in back). Unfortunately, I live in South Dakota where the climate around here isn't too favorable for riding from November through March. By this time of year it's not too uncommon to see snow on the roads or temperatures well below freezing.

The normal high temperature for Sioux Falls this time of year is 37 deg F. But yesterday was a different story as afternoon temperatures on December 1, 2021 reached to a high of 61 deg F. I took advantage of these warmer temperatures by riding my Spyder at the end of my workday through downtown Sioux Falls and Falls Park as sunset approached.

As I write this blog entry, I just completed shoveling a couple inches of snow from my driveway. The streets and the lawns are covered with a new fresh layer of white snow from our latest winter storm. Earlier last week, knowing that new snow and colder temperatures were fast approaching, I decided to take my Can-Am Spyder for a spin on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2021. The trip was short with only 18 miles for the round trip to and from work but I was all smiles the entire time I rode my three-wheeler.

So my 15 minutes of fame for 2021 has already happened. I was interviewed by Dakota News Now at the end of 2020 which aired on KSFY and KDLT the first day of this year.

My son asked me why the local news was doing the interview. The short answer, I'm getting old.

Being a former meteorologist, I have a number of coffee cups related to weather themes. Today's mug comes to us via the 2000 biographical disaster drama film, The Perfect Storm. The film presents the story of the Andrea Gail, a commercial fishing vessel that was lost at sea with all hands after being caught in the Perfect Storm of 1991.

The film stars George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, John Hawkes, William Fichtner, Michael Ironside, John C. Reilly, Diane Lane, Karen Allen and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. The film was released by Warner Bros. and grossed $328 million worldwide.

April 27, 2019. Perhaps why people that live in South Dakota drink a little too much.

This morning, we woke up to a record low temperature in Sioux Falls, SD with the mercury dropping down to -17°F. This beat the previous record for March 3rd of -15°F established in 1916 and tied again in 2014.

We have had colder temperatures of course, but when these cold temperatures and the snow are seen in early March...it feels like Spring is never going to reach South Dakota. Normal high temperatures for this time of year is in the mid to upper 30s with lows in the teens (above zero!).

It's a record breaking day here in Sioux Falls and in many areas.

We've checked the boxes for three of these records, will we complete the sweep? pic.twitter.com/2MedTc9uKW

When I talk about Drupal, information technology and the weather all in the same breath, I get a little excited. I can't help myself. I'm biased toward Drupal as it is one of my favorite content management systems. I'm also a former meteorologist working in information technology for a very large organization that is heavily involved with the weather. Needless to say, a year or two ago when I heard that The Weather Channel started using Drupal to meet the needs of it's customers and meteorologists, it caught my attention. I think the use of Drupal is a win-win for everyone around and given my background, I wish my own employer had adopted a similar solution. I think organizations miss out on a lot when they don't utilize open source or even proprietary systems in favor of an in-house CMS.

During weeks like this, I wonder why I live in South Dakota. Why, didn't I stick with the "plan" and stay here for only three years?

Seeing four inches of snow on the ground in April does not make those that love summer happy.

We had four inches of snow here, but other parts of South Dakota received more than a foot of snow. In other words, I can't complain too much, but I still hold the right to complain a little! The good news is that most of the snow has melted with only a few snow drifts still left in the yard.

Seeing this much snow during the last weeks of April isn't unheard of in the northern plains, but it doesn't happen too often. I think the last time I saw this much snow in April was in 2004. For the meteorologists at heart, the National Weather Service in Sioux Falls has a good explanation for show these type of winter weather storms develop in April.

While most bloggers are using the new year to look ahead, I am not quite ready to make promises to the year of 2007. In fact, I am more inclined to looking at the past thanks to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

I'd like to challenge anyone who has designed a web page to find the oldest site in the archive that they authored and post the Wayback Machine link in the comment section of this post. There are no prizes being awarded in this "contest" but I promise you can have some space for bragging rights. Feel free to include any history on the page that you feel is necessary to tell your story.

The archive contains archived web pages from 1996 to the near present. The oldest web pages I could find that I authored was from 1997 for the National Weather Service's forecast office in Sioux Falls, SD.

The above site actually originated in March 1996, but this 1997 image is the earliest I could find in the archive. Not very impressive is it? However, you have to remember that I was authoring with HTML 1.x and worried that Netscape's introduction of the blink element was pushing the envelope further than I wanted to go.