It’s a warm, shiny, crisp spring day in Sioux Falls, SD. Petite songbirds hop from branch to branch, singing sweet tunes in a melodic stream of odd chirps and hoots. The scent of freshly cut grass stings the air with blades of green and growth. Dewdrops gently slip off of soft leaves, showering the soil with pearls of daylight. It’s perfect weather for meeting up with friends or spending the day laying around in your backyard. Of course, it’s all just one big hoax we promote to distract ourselves from the horrendous weather that follows.

     It all started in the spring of 2014. Back then, the usual weather pattern included only blistering summers, freezing winters and violent tornadoes in between. I had just moved from Seattle, the city of dreary drizzles, little to no snow and lows in the upper 40’s year round. For me, the strange weather couldn’t be any more foreign. The shock of it really set in when an ice storm blew over all of Sioux Falls, freezing everything exposed to the cold air in thick layers of ice and frost. It was beautiful; trees dazzled in sunlight as thin icicles trembled underneath their branches and the grass crunched as we walked through parks and playgrounds. It was also incredibly inconvenient, delaying school, closing roads and killing hundreds of trees and other wildlife. At the time, I thought it must’ve been the very end of the spectrum: the extreme weather I’d only seen in documentaries and news reports. But it was only the beginning.

     We experienced heavy snowfall, shutting school down and closing off grocery stores. We sat through lightning storms and tornadoes in our basement for hours on end. Rain pounded on our windows and hail left dents in our car. The recent flooding closed down streets and soaked our carpets with cold water. The weather here in Sioux Falls is some of the most exasperating and excruciating I’ve ever experienced. How can one city experience so much extreme weather in such a short amount of time? Who would want to live in a place that launches constant environmental assaults on its residents every month?

     Somehow, people still find reasons to move here. Apparently, Sioux Falls in one of the best cities to raise your children in. It’s growing exponentially; houses are being constructed in what used to be rural parts of town. Unemployment is at a steady low, and the economy is booming with new businesses. People in Sioux Falls are happy. They overlook the awful weather and choose to love Sioux Falls for its more pleasant qualities. Some may even embrace the weather for its uniqueness. Not me, of course. The weather sucks — but the people are great. The schools are great. Sioux Falls is probably one of the safest and most productive places to raise a family, to grow up in and to live. That is, of course, if you can put up with the temperamental weather.