Sinai, South Dakota
9 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1953 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Lake Sinai Township. It lies in ZIP code area 57061. The Survey maps it on the Sinai quadrangle. 99 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,781 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresSinai fell from 120 to 99 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 120 | |
| 2020 | 99 | -21 (-18%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
4 surveys from 9 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1953 USGS Watertown quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1958 USGS Watertown quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1968 USGS Sinai quadrangle1:24000
- 1985 USGS De Smet quadrangle1:100000, 3 printings
Fires near this place
1 since 2009Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 1 fire within 5 miles of Sinai in 2009, burning under an acre in total. None started naturally. 1 was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Reported cause | Fires |
|---|---|
| Arson/incendiarism | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 July 2009 | Arson/incendiarism | under an acre | Madison Wetland Management District | RAMSEY WF |
Storms near this place
30 since 1996Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Sinai in 30 storm reports between 1996 and 2025: 16 hail, 9 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado, 2 flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sinai | $3,000,000 | Thunderstorm winds caused widespread structural, tree, and power line damage in and near Sinai. The roof was ripped off a mobile home, a well drilling business was destroyed, the siding from another business was ripped off, part of a grain elevator was smashed, several garages were destroyed or heavily damaged, several trees were blown down and widespread tree debris littered the area, and power lines and poles were blown down. Power outages lasted until the next day. At a farm just east of Sinai, five grain bins, a machine shed, and several small shacks were destroyed, and the farmhouse was damaged, with about 300 thousand dollars in damage estimated at this farm alone. Other small farm structures in the area were reported to be destroyed or damaged. Crops in the area were heavily damaged by the wind and accompanying hail, with one witness watching as a bean field "just disappeared." The crop damage was widespread, but the amount of crop damage could not be determined. |
| September 2019 | Flood | Sinai | $244,000 | Flooding resulted in damage to public infrastructure including county and township roads and culverts. Flooding also resulted in crop losses across the area. Crop loss estimates provided by the United States Department of Agriculture. |
| October 1997 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sinai | $100,000 | no account filed |
| June 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sinai | - | Several three-inch tree limbs were downed by thunderstorm wind gusts. |
| May 2022 | Tornado (EFU) | Sinai | - | A tornado spun up over Lake Sinai, and dissipated before it reached shore. The tornado caused no damage from which the NWS could assign an EF-scale rating. The average path width was estimated to be 30 yards. |
| August 2021 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sinai | - | Thunderstorm winds downed several trees in the Lake Sinai area. |
| June 2019 | Flood | Sinai | - | During crop planting season, prolonged flooding led to the loss of or inability to plant crops across the area. Crop loss estimates provided by the United States Department of Agriculture. |
| May 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sinai | - | Severe large branches downed. |
| May 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sinai | - | Several branches were downed, some as large as three inches in diameter. |
| May 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sinai | - | Large, seven inch tree branches were downed. |
| May 2011 | Hail | Sinai | - | Nickel size hail whitened the ground. |
| September 2005 | Hail | Sinai | - | Large hail covered the ground and was accompanied by estimated 50 mph winds. The hail damaged a home and area crops, but the amount of damage was not known. |
| May 2002 | Flash Flood | Sinai | - | Several roads were under water after heavy rain. |
| July 2002 | Tornado (F0) | Sinai | - | A tornado caused no reported damage. |
| July 2002 | Hail | Sinai | - | Large hail, accompanied by 50 mph winds, caused crop damage. The amount of crop damage was not known. |
| July 2023 | Hail | Sinai | - | no account filed |
| July 2023 | Hail | Sinai | - | no account filed |
| May 2014 | Hail | Sinai | - | no account filed |
| May 2011 | Hail | Sinai | - | no account filed |
| June 2009 | Hail | Sinai | - | no account filed |
| June 2006 | Hail | Sinai | - | no account filed |
| June 2006 | Hail | Sinai | - | no account filed |
| June 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sinai | - | no account filed |
| June 2005 | Hail | Sinai | - | no account filed |
| April 2004 | Hail | Sinai | - | no account filed |
| May 2004 | Hail | Sinai | - | no account filed |
| May 2000 | Thunderstorm Wind | Sinai | - | no account filed |
| July 2000 | Hail | Sinai | - | no account filed |
| September 1997 | Hail | Sinai | - | no account filed |
| June 1996 | Hail | Sinai | - | no account filed |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ahnberg | 4.2 miles | 9 | |
| Volga | 8.2 miles | 8 | |
| Sheldon Trailor Town | 12.0 miles | 9 | |
| Brookings | 13.7 miles | 9 | |
| Medary | 13.7 miles | 11 | |
| Sunnyview | 15.2 miles | 9 | |
| Bruce | 15.6 miles | 8 | |
| North Grove Addition | 18.6 miles | 9 |
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Sinai | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q568314 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1258080. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.



