Ready for what South Dakota actually throws at you.

South Dakota's hazards span two completely different geographies. The eastern plains — flat, agricultural, tornado-prone — share more with Iowa and Minnesota than with the Black Hills in the west. The October 2013 Atlas blizzard killed 75,000 cattle in western South Dakota in a single storm — early October, when livestock were still on summer pasture with no shelter. The Missouri River floods catastrophically in wet years: the 2011 Missouri River flood caused $1.6B in damage and inundated communities for months. Tornadoes hit the eastern half of the state regularly from May through August. And South Dakota's winters are brutal — the Hi-Line and west river country see -40°F or colder multiple times per winter. After years as a Medicaid non-expansion state, South Dakota voters passed expansion by ballot in 2022 and coverage began July 1, 2023.