Red Flag Warning Issued for Western South Dakota Through Thursday
This alert is no longer in effect.
NOAA issued it on May 20, 2026, 3 months ago. Warnings of this kind stay in effect for hours to a few days, so this page is a historical record of what was issued, not a current warning. For conditions where you are right now, check weather.gov (US), weather.gc.ca (Canada), the Met Office (UK), or the Bureau of Meteorology (Australia).
Areazine synthesizes this NWS weather alert directly from NOAA's official public data feed. See our methodology for full source attribution and refresh cadence.
NWS Rapid City has issued a Red Flag Warning for multiple fire weather zones in western South Dakota due to gusty winds and low humidity.
Read this weather record in 30 seconds
- Record type
- Red Flag Warning
- Affected area
- Western South Dakota
- Issued
- May 20, 2026
- Issuing authority
- NWS Rapid City SD
Fire-weather notices describe conditions that can support rapid fire spread; they do not report that a fire is present. Check local emergency sources for any active incident.
Record status: historical. It was issued 3 months ago; use the issuing agency's live warning service for current conditions in Western South Dakota.
Alert Details
A Red Flag Warning remains in effect, issued by the National Weather Service Rapid City SD. The alert is classified under event code FWW with VTEC /O.CON.KUNR.FW.W.0021.260513T1800Z-260515T0300Z/.
Affected Areas
The warning covers Fire Weather Zones 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 329, 330, 331, 332, and 333, including Fall River County Area, Northern Foot Hills, Eastern Foot Hills, Custer County Plains, Pine Ridge Area, Butte County Area, West Central Plains, Ziebach County, Haakon County Area, Badlands Area, and Bennett County Area.
What You Should Do
A Red Flag Warning means critical fire weather conditions are either occurring now or will shortly. Any fires that develop will spread rapidly. Outdoor burning is not recommended.
Expected Conditions
Warm, very dry, and breezy weather will support critical fire weather conditions. Southeast winds of 20 to 30 mph with gusts up to 40 mph are expected, with relative humidity as low as 10 percent. Winds will shift northwest after a trough moves through early Thursday morning.
Timeline
The warning is in effect from noon Wednesday (May 13) to 9 PM MDT Thursday (May 14).
Original source: NOAA Official Notice ↗
Related Weather Alerts
All Weather Alerts →Nationwide notices with similar length or severity timing 8
Two Areazine-derived peer sets for this NWS weather alert: nearest notices by body length and by same severity near the same agency date. Peers come from other categories so they are not the same-feed Related list above.
Similar body length
Nearest notices by article body length (1,161 characters here).
Similar severity timing
Same severity (high) notices issued closest in time to May 20, 2026.
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Common questions about this NWS weather alert.