Sioux Falls Kicks Off Winter With Nearly Five Inches Of Snow

Sioux Falls is officially off and running, well, more like slipping and sliding into another winter weather season after the 4.8 inches of snow (and possibly a bonus inch or two in certain neighborhoods) that arrived over the long Thanksgiving break.

City plows are still making their way through town. On the west side, where I live, the familiar sound of city plows finally rumbled past my home early Monday morning. My neighborhood is usually one of the final stops on the city’s snow-removal routes.

Tip of the old stocking cap to city crews who spent much of the holiday weekend pushing snow around instead of eating pumpkin pie, and to their credit, most Sioux Falls streets are in pretty solid driving shape.

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If last weekend’s storm is a sign of what’s ahead, snow removal companies across the Sioux Empire might be in for a very profitable winter.

For them, a visit from Old Man Winter isn’t a nuisance; it’s a notification that the cash register is about to start ringing.

Johnathan Taylor with Arctic Winter Management told Dakota News Now, “It’s just kind of an extra payday. We call the snow white gold.”

Taylor, an equipment operator, says South Dakota snowstorms mean plenty of work, plenty of hours, and plenty of extra pay.

“We’ve got guys who will only hit four or five locations,” he told Dakota News Now. “And we’ve got other guys hitting ten, fifteen, sometimes twenty, depending on how long storms go.”

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And if it feels like Sioux Falls already has more snow on the ground than we did all of last winter… well, you’re not imagining things. The 4.8 inches we picked up over Thanksgiving is the biggest 24-hour snowfall the city has seen since January 2024.

What's scary, this was just Winter’s opening number. Something tells me Mother Nature has several more snow-packed performances planned before we see the grass again in May.

Heck, by then, you and your trusty friend John Deere (the snowblower) should be on a first-name basis. You'll probably be referring to your snowblower as your “seasonal life partner” by then.