With South Dakota actually getting seasons that felt like, well, seasons, winter greeted us in a very abnormal fashion: BLIZZARD!. That's right, after ending last year's winter in quiet fashion, experiencing 3 months of spring weather and rain, having a summer that was sunny and not too hot (never even broke 100 degrees in Pierre), and having a healthy dose of mild autumn temperatures and colors, winter....sucks.

It was a low pressure system, combined with two different wind patterns, that stalled out a wet, rainy pocket over much of North and South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, and portions of Nebraska that started turning to a snowing mix and blizzarding conditions in the north and west portions. The Black Hills stalled out a portion of the storm and ending up dumping a couple of feet of snow, and the rest of the western half of South Dakota saw as high as 10' drifts in areas.

Pierre kept dodging cold, windy rain for most of the day Thursday, after hearing reports that the expected landfall of the snow kept getting pushed back in time. Well, at 5:00PM, as everyone was heading home from work, it hit us. Wet, sticky globs of snow were pelting people across the face and sticking in hair as they scrambled for their cars. I had to cancel my racquetball session with my friend due to the practically white out conditions.

It was a night spent at home, not doing much of anything. Good thing I stocked up on cereals before the storm hit. I'd hate to have to scramble inside a convenience store to get a breakfast pizza again. It's just more expensive anyway, but I recently had a lazy spurt.

So, here I am, flung headlong into the winter season, and looking back on the year I've come to appreciate the oddball year where we actually had a spring, summer, and autumn. I could have dealt without the "Hello! Winter's Here!" blizzard.