Dakota Today

*** Crops and Weather are the news.

Temperatures in the area have been mostly dreadful.  Something like 104F for high yesterday and it stayed hot until temp finally dropped down to 75F this morning.   Did not take long for the bright, burning sun to again push temperature up to around 104F today and there was some humidity which was good for crops, but made the heat more miserable.

A little good news this evening,  Wall of clouds filled the northern sky and we got a bit of rain.  Just enough to leave puddles on asphalt and settle the dust.  But, the tiny shower came with a temperature drop down to 71F or 81F depending on which report or thermometer.  Breeze actually felt cool which was markedly different than winds this morning and yesterday which felt as if they were coming out of an open furnace.

Looks like some of the corn around here unrolled with the drizzle and temperature drop.

*** Stay tuned even if it is really to hot to waste time on the internet--- Doug Wiken

*** Hot weather in Tripp County, but still no rain

Just looked at the 3-day weather history for Winner at Wyly Field.  Highest today was 101F.  My own thermometer, weather device shows 104 F, but it is in the sun.  Shows 5mph wind.  You can check the 3-day weather history here.

KELO-TV weather indicates heat like this for several days.  It is also like this in nearly all of western SD and into North Dakota.  Of course, still not as bad as the 129 F reported for Iran or Iraq yesterday.

July 3, 2017, I put a photo on my Facebook page of the moon which then appeared to be floating on a sea of clouds.

** Sweating it out in Tripp County, SD  --- Doug Wiken

***Winner new Runnings Building construction in sunset

Runnings systen is building a new and large store in Winner, SD just north of existing Shopko store parking lot.  Empire Construction appears to be doing most of the work with some also being done by local contractors.  Despite some rainy weather and days with a lot of wind, the building will soon be enclosed on all sides and with the roof completed.  I guess the next thing will be to pour a concrete floor in the building.  Anyway, below is a photo of the partially completed building with a building crane in the sunset.

I believe building completion time and new store opening is currently projected for October 2017.  This has been interesting to watch now and then.

***Stay tuned, but keep an eye on the GOP as they destroy US Healthcare in the interests of tax breaks for the dear starving and ailing millionaires and billionares.---- Doug Wiken

*** Peonies finally bloom in Winner

The Winner, SD weather and for that matter most SD weather this spring has been a bit strange going from near unseasonable lows to near record highs.  The recent 90F plus degrees caused flowers of all kinds to burst into blossom.  Below is a my wife's old peony plant.

Another with nearly all white blossoms had about a dozen blossoms, but the pink above seemed a bit more interesting.

** Stay tuned for less flowery posts ---- Doug Wiken

*** Runnings Construting New Building in Winner, SD

Runnings has operated out of a relatively small building compared to the other buildings used by the chain,  That is changing.  The business will likely be moved into a new building now being constructed NW of the existing Shopko store.  I think they expect to be in the new building by October if the weather cooperates.  A few rains have slowed the operation a few days.   My image may not give a good idea of the size of the building.  It must be something like 150 by 400 or more feet.   I think a story in the Winner paper with info from Russ Church, the local Runnings manager, indicated the building would be in the neighborhood of 60,000 square feet, but I am not sure about that.   Below is a photo I took today not too long after they got all of the roof girders erected.

Click on image for a somewhat larger version.  I will follow up this with more images on another day.  Many of us hope when this store opens, it will bring more people to Winner who will also shop in other local stores so that this becomes a win-win for Winner rather than more dog eat dog business.

*** Stay tuned for something besides local business news--- Doug Wiken

 

Winner Cemetery Memorial Day Avenue of Flags 2017

Winnner, SD volunteers put out several hundred flags each memorializing a veteran.  Today was a good day to view the flags and themetery.  Clouds and sky were beautiful and their was a light wind with good temperatures.  The photo below shows something between 40 and 50 of the many flags.

Click on image for a somewhat larger version.  This flag presentation is a lot of work and volunteers deserve our thanks, but veterans put their lives on the line for us.

***Stay tuned for more red, white, and blue one of these days--- Doug Wiken

**Sure sign of Spring..or omen of next blizzard?

Too many times in the past years, the first blossoms of spring have ended up barely sticking out of snow or frosted with ice.  Same seems to have been true for Pamida..now Shopko..getting in a bunch of cold-sensitive plants.   I am hoping that the tulips in the photo below are true harbingers of nice spring weather and not omens of wet cold blizzard.

Very nice day in Winner, SD today.  Not much wind and 66F degrees or so.  Reliance weather radio is predicting rain and possible thunderstorms coming soon however.  In any case, grass is growing and will soon have to be mowed.

It is a Sunday and sabbath gas bags are in full wind mode of course.  Mostly what I am hearing is dispair over Trump and Trump Administration demonstrating dangerous ignorance and bravado in foreign affairs and promotion of truly idiotic economic policy which if enacted will greatly harm the very people who most strongly supported Trump in the last election.  But, nothing much new in that.  Some awareness from Democrats that they truly fowled up the last election....which has been obvious to many of us in the boondocks for months.  Those on the coasts and flying the friendly skies have been a bit slower or more reluctant in that direction.

*** Stay tuned for whichever way the wind blows and how fast and how hot or cold---- Doug Wiken

*** Most of 6 inches of snow disappeared this afternoon

By noon today, most of yesterday snow on the flat ground with grass and stems sticking out of it had already disappeared.  At 4PM, the buttes northwest of Winner, SD. were still bright white with snow.  I went to get my camera to take a photo, but the battery went dead.  I tried the other battery which I had forgotten to charge.  It was dead.  Well, I had other things to do.  Let the battery charge for an hour or so.

Well, all that bright white on the buttes disappeared late this afternoon.  No good photos.  I guess temperatures got up to around 70 degrees and it is still warm enough for just a shirt and no jacket.  Even if South Dakota may not be a real land of infinite variety, we do have some often rapidly changing weather.  We have the benefits of forecasts which are mostly close to what happens, but it is easy to undrstand how pioneers walking or riding these plains on horse or in a wagon could easily get far enough away in good weather to be suddenly caught in blizzards too far away from home to stay warm and many often died as a result.  Happened to truckers too even in the 1950's when forecasts did not have satellite observations and radar and were often not much better than a good guess on these open plains far from stabalizing temperatures of the oceans.

And if the weather isn't quite enough, we have the hot air blowing from the Trump administration or off them with heated press coverage to keep things interesting.  Apparently ignorance at the White House extends to being unaware that Hitler gassed tens of thousands during WWII.  Perhaps the statement would have been correct even if nearly irrelevant had Spicer said Germany did not use gas on the battlefield of Europe in WWII.  The White House needs to hire speech and fact checkers with solid knowledge of history and law and current events.  Perhaps that would keep their BS-smeared feet out of their mouths.

The White House is not a good place for learning how to be a President when the inane President has zero government experience and the people he chooses to work for him are such ideologues that they aren't aware of the real world that surrounds them and which is not described by alternate facts.

*** Stay tuned and watch your weathermen as the stand in front of the weather maps so we can see their smiling faces for the thousandth time --- Doug Wiken

 

** Predicted "light dusting" turns into more like spring blizzard

Yesterday, weather forecast from Reliance, SD weather radio was something like "light dusting of snow only collecting on grass at higher elevations".  That did not sound too bad.  I woke up about 4AM and could see some white on grass and street, but street lights reflecting can play visual tricks.

This morning, outdoors in daylight looked more like a spring blizzard than a light dusting.  My wife made it to to work with the 4-wheel drive Explorer, but said driving was nasty, streets slippery, and snow coming down fast enough the vehicle wipers were not doing very well with it.  I am not sure how many inches of snow, but I would guess something between 2 and 4 inches by now.  (Note-- After snowing died down came the shoveling.  I think it was more like 4 to 6 inches and was wet and heavy.  More like shoveling dirt than snow.  By this evening most of snow on streets and roads had melted) Local airport weather indicates wind about 22mph wind from NW gusting to 30.  Precipitation totals including rain yesterday and snow overnight total almost exactly one inch.  Weather at Wiley Field, Winner, SD.  Image gives an idea of blowing snow and limitation on visibility.

Temperature seems to have gotten back up to 32.  Maybe the sun can do a number on this latest snow.

***Stay tuned and check the weather before driving anyplace in SD today..conditions vary wildly--- Doug Wiken

 

*** From shorts to longjohns in one night...South Dakota of all places..and Thorium.

Welcome to spring. Sunshine and warm for past days.  Women and girls  were wearing short, shorts.  I wasn't, but it was shirtsleeve weather in western South Dakota.  This morning, we awoke to freezing temperature 32F degrees, and an inch or two of wet show.  A couple photos below of the second day of spring in Tripp County, South Dakota

And then there was snow in the Winner Park.  Streets, etc were so warm yet that snow on them has melted already.

Whatever the weather, and whatever the effects of fossil fuels on climate, take a look at the link below concerning generating electric power by using Thorium salts rather than Uranium. Wind and solar are huge opportunities, but Thorium-based nuclear power production works well with finding the rare earths needed for solar systems.  Take the two minutes the video takes.  It is well worth your time.  THORIUM ELECTRIC GENERATION..SAFER, SIMPLER ,  And another link Thorium Remix.

NOTE OF MAR 21. 2017: Take a few more minutes and check the comment by Mike Jones related to solar energy and associated with this post.  He has hands-on experience with the system mounted on his house in Colorado.
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***Stay tuned and may Thorium  power be with you in the future---Doug Wiken