The title for oldest profession in the world may already be taken, but I’m pretty sure I know what comes in at second-oldest: complaining about the weather. Not a profession per se, but you wouldn’t necessarily know that from listening to some folks...

Take… well, now. The weather map for most of America looks pretty dismal tonight. Check out the latest NOAA temperature forecasts above. Even Florida’s looking pretty blue, with a hard freeze warning and lows in the upper 20s for Orlando. Tomorrow’s daytime high isn’t supposed to get past the lower 50s. I’ll bet Mickey’s putting on an extra sweater.

Now take the Black Hills. Lows in the 20s tonight with highs in the mid-fifties tomorrow. Slightly better than Orlando, and significantly better than the rest of the country. See that blue-green spot in western South Dakota that looks warmer than everyone else? Yeah, that’ll be me walking around in a windbreaker tomorrow.

Okay, so tonight is a bit of an extreme example. Mickey’s usually in t-shirts when I’m getting out my coat and gloves. But the weather in the Black Hills is much better than people think. In fact, after poking around at NOAA’s climate data, I found out that on average, Rapid City gets less snow than Denver, warmer temperatures than Minneapolis and more sunny days than either Miami or Honolulu. When it comes right down to it, the weather in the Black Hills isn’t much different than it is in the rest of the country – and it might even be a bit better.