Lead, SD Weather Forecast
Lawrence County, South Dakota
Seven-day outlook
31–59°F across the weekThe week runs between 33° and 59°, with Sunday the warmest day of it. The second half leans cooling, and Tuesday is the coolest day in it. Monday is the wettest day, peaking near 82%. 4 of the 7 days stay dry.
Forecasts come from the National Weather Service's own computer models, and current conditions from the nearest reporting weather station. Both are served through the weather API. A forecast is guidance, not a warning, and anything the Weather Service has actually issued is on the live map.
The written summaries on this page are generated from the forecast data above, not by a meteorologist. Each sentence is a reading of the same numbers you can see, and no forecaster has reviewed them.
About the Lead forecast
Lead sits at 44.3528°N, 103.7671°W in Lawrence County, South Dakota. The forecast above is drawn for that point from the National Weather Service's own computer models: a seven-day outlook, and a finer-grained one covering the next eighteen hours where it reaches, and the radar and alert panels show what the Weather Service has out over the area right now.
- County
- Lawrence County
- Coordinates
- 44.3528°N, 103.7671°W
- Population
- 3,035 · 2023 estimate
- Land area
- 2.058 sq mi
Place data from the US Census Bureau. Coordinates are the Census internal point for Lead, and the forecast is for that location, not for every address inside the city limits, and a large city can have real weather differences from one side to the other.
How well can the network see Lead?
The nearest Doppler radar is KUDX (Rapid City, SD), 49 miles to the ESE. A WSR-88D's lowest routine scan sits half a degree above horizontal, and the earth curves away beneath it, so by the time that beam reaches Lead its center is about 3,500 ft above ground. That is comfortably inside the useful range. The lowest scan passes low enough over Lead to show rotation in the part of a storm where tornadoes actually form.
The closest instrument actually measuring the air is KSPF · Spearfish/Clyde Fld on the ASOS/AWOS network, 8.9 miles away. Near enough to be representative on most days, though a summer thunderstorm can soak one and miss the other entirely.
Beam height is the standard 4/3-earth approximation for the 0.5° scan and assumes normal refraction; it is where the center of the beam is, not its edges, and unusual temperature profiles bend it. Radar siting from the NWS WSR-88D network, station positions from the South Dakota observing network as of this build.
Forecasts near Lead
- Spearfish, SD10 mi
- Sturgis, SD14 mi
- Belle Fourche, SD22 mi
- Summerset, SD24 mi
- Rapid City, SD33 mi
- Box Elder, SD38 mi
- Newcastle, WY41 mi
- Hot Springs, SD66 mi
Elsewhere in South Dakota
Sioux FallsRapid CityAberdeenBrookingsWatertownYanktonAll South Dakota forecasts →