Flooding in South Dakota, June 26 to 27, 1998

Heavy rains of 2 to 4 inches fell across much of northern and eastern Brown, western and northern Day and all of Marshall counties during the afternoon and evening of the 26th. The additional heavy rain only exacerbated the flooding which had been occurring over much of this area for years. Kidder, in northern Marshall county, received up to 5 inches of rain on the 26th after receiving around 2 inches on the 25th. The heavy rain on the 26th flooded the whole town, filling nearly every basement. One resident had the basement walls cave in. Areas of Britton were also flooded with water in basements. The heavy rains added to the already thousands of acres of crop and pastureland under water. Near Frederick, a farmer lost nearly 2000 acres of crops to the hail, wind, and flooding. One farmer in Day county near Webster had documented over one-half million dollars in damage to fences, buildings, land, and income from the prolonged flooding. On his farm, he had 15 buildings under water. This farmer said the highest he had measured the water before from flooding was 9 feet, but for this year it had gone up to 21 feet. As a result of this and past heavy rains and also many years of above normal precipitation, about 22 percent of the total farm and pastureland acres in the three counties were flooded or too wet to farm. Many more township and county roads along with some highways were added to the flooded list across the three counties. Some rainfall amounts included, 2.30 inches at Sand Lake NWR, 2.7 inches at Langford, 2.95 inches at Groton, 3.5 inches northwest of Bristol, and 5.10 inches 9N 9W of Britton.