The chinook is a warm, dry wind that sometimes blows into parts
of the United States. On January 22, 1943, such a wind brought
an early spring to the residents of the Black Hills of South
Dakota. In the town of Spearfish, temperatures shot up forty-
nine degrees in only two minutes, a too-rapid change that caused
glass windows everywhere to crack. However, the wind did not
affect all parts of the towns in the area. In the town of Lead,
the temperature was measured at 52 degrees, while only three
miles away in Deadwood, it was -16 degrees. Spearfish’s
temperature continued to jump around crazily. An hour and a half
after the initial temperature change, the thermometers again
read four degrees below zero. In other towns, it alternated
between nine and fifty degrees Chinooks are winds formed when
bodies of humid air cross the Rocky Mountains in the mid-western
United States. The rising humid air releases moisture as rain or
snow, a process that creates heat and stops it from cooling.
This newly dried breeze moves