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The public record 1996 to today

South Dakota hail history

The public federal storm record holds 1,809 days with hail somewhere in South Dakota since 1996, 1,499 of them at 1.00″ or more, across 39,890 reports. The largest on record is 8.00″ on 23 July 2010. 18 cities have hail on record within 10 miles of their centre, and each has a page that says what was searched and which storm days more than one source carried. The wind family has its own index: South Dakota wind history.

1,809

Days with hail on record, statewide

1,499

Days at 1.00″ or more

8.00in

Largest on record, Jul 2010

18

Cities with hail on record nearby

Hail by city in South Dakota

Ranked by days with hail on record within 10 miles of each city's centre, then by population. Every place of five thousand people or more has a page; the busiest are listed here and the rest are a disclosure away.

  1. 01 Rapid City 264 days
  2. 02 Box Elder 190 days
  3. 03 Spearfish 134 days
  4. 04 Sturgis 122 days
  5. 05 Tea 119 days
  6. 06 Sioux Falls 111 days
  7. 07 Harrisburg 108 days
  8. 08 Brandon 96 days
  9. 09 Yankton 77 days
  10. 10 Belle Fourche 76 days
  11. 11 Mitchell 72 days
  12. 12 Vermillion 68 days
  13. 13 Watertown 63 days
  14. 14 Huron 58 days
  15. 15 Aberdeen 56 days
  16. 16 Madison 54 days
  17. 17 Pierre 52 days
  18. 18 Brookings 44 days

Hail days by year in South Dakota

Days with hail At 1.00″ or more

The busiest year on record is 2005, with 70 days of hail, 58 of them at 1.00″ or more.

Largest hail recorded in South Dakota

Measured Detected, not measured

Largest hail recorded in South Dakota: date, hail size, evidence and where the report was taken.
Date Size Evidence County
23 Jul 2010 8.00″ Ground observation Not stated
23 Jul 2010 8.00″ Ground observation LYMAN, SD
21 Aug 2007 6.88″ Ground observation CHARLES MIX, SD
21 Aug 2007 6.88″ Ground observation Not stated
21 Aug 2007 6.13″ Ground observation CHARLES MIX, SD
21 Aug 2007 6.13″ Ground observation Not stated
19 Jun 2015 6.00″ Ground observation Not stated
19 Jun 2015 6.00″ Ground observation BUTTE, SD

Hail days by month in South Dakota

Hail here is a July matter: 473 of the days on record fall in that month, all years together.

The next step

Get the hail report for an address in South Dakota

The figures on this page are the record across South Dakota: enough to know there is something to cite, and from where. None of it says what reached one roof.

Run the address and the same archive is searched at the property: the storm, the date, the measured size, the distance and bearing from the roof, and the federal record each figure came from, in a document that states its own method. Ready in minutes.

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How this page is made

What counted
Every hail report in the archive filed under South Dakota by its source, with the cities ranked by the reports within 10 miles of each centre. A hail day is a calendar date with at least one report: four sources describing one storm are one afternoon of hail, not four.
Measured and detected
A report from a person or an instrument is measured. A radar-derived size is a detection and is marked as one, here and in every document we issue. The two are never added together.
Severe
A day counts as severe when its largest report reached 1.00″, the National Weather Service criterion. Smaller hail is still on the record, and still on this page.
What this is not
Neighbouring places share reports, so counts are not exclusive. This page is the record around a place; it is not a report on any property, and it states no opinion about one.
Terms used on this page
Storm day, independent source, measured and detected: each term this page uses is defined in the glossary as the report prints it.
The record
Searched from 1996 to today. Compiled 2 November 2026 and rebuilt daily as the archive deepens. Records are reproduced as the federal sources published them. The coverage page states what the record holds, by kind and by year.

About this record

Everything here is reproduced from public federal and volunteer weather records, as the agencies and observer networks that publish them released it. Titan Weather compiles the record; it does not observe the weather, and it is not affiliated with any source it cites.

No archive holds everything. Storms cross places where nobody is standing, instruments and observers cover some areas better than others, sources revise their records, and recent reports can take weeks to arrive and settle. Coverage also thins as the years go back: an early quiet stretch may describe who was watching rather than what the weather did. Where this page shows nothing, nothing was found in the sources searched, within the period and area it states. That is not a finding that no weather occurred.

A record sits where its source filed it. Reports made from the ground are commonly logged against a town, a landmark or an offset from one rather than the spot where the measurement was taken, so any distance shown for one carries that source's own location error. Radar detections and warning geometry are instrument-located and do not.

These pages describe the public record near a place or on a date. They do not establish what reached any particular property, and nothing here is insurance, legal or engineering advice.