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49 Degree Change in Two Minutes

<img class="styles__noscript__2rw2y" src="https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/spearfish-2-rickbriggs_980x551.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0" srcset="https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/spearfish-2-rickbriggs_980x551.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0 400w, https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/spearfish-2-rickbriggs_980x551.jpg?v=ap&w=980&h=551&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0 800w" > 1 of 6 Spearfish, S.D. Spearfish after a heavy snowstorm in late December 2009 from iWitness Weather contributor RickBriggs.

Imagine bundling up to get the newspaper on an early morning at 7:30 a.m. with the temperature at a frigid -4 degrees.

Just two minutes later as you are letting Fido have a potty break on the lawn, you notice that the frigid air you walked out the door into is not so frigid anymore. You look at your thermometer and the temperature has shot up to 45 degrees. That's right, a temperature increase of 49 degrees in just two minutes!

But wait, that's not the end of this wild morning weather story. After the temperature climbs all the way to 54 degrees at 9 a.m., it crashes down again 58 degrees in 27 minutes to -4 degrees once again.

Sounds like a dream, but it's not. All of this happened in Spearfish, S.D. on January 22, 1943.

The National Weather Service in Sioux Falls, S.D. describes the cause of the dramatic temperature changes:

"The wild temperature fluctuations were likely due to cold air and warm air sloshing back and forth along the plains at the base of the Black Hills. A similar effect would be to pour warm water into a shallow bowl of cold water. The water would slosh back and forth a few times before settling down. This is likely what happened with the warm and cold air along the Black Hills."

For our next extreme temperature swing, we go to a city that set a record high and low in one day.