South Dakota Snow Plow Tracker and Road Conditions

Q: Why is there no plow tracker in South Dakota?

SDDOT has not published one. 31 of the 50 states are in the same position, and several of them get more snow than the states that do publish one. What South Dakota publishes instead is SD511, the state's own travel map, at https://sd511.org/.

Q: What is SD511?

SD511 is South Dakota Department of Transportation's own travel information service. SD511 carries traffic cameras and a phone line at 511. SDDOT describes it this way: "SD511 is an interactive map of current road conditions in South Dakota. Travelers can also dial 511 for current road conditions."

Roads, not trucks

What the state publishes

No live plow map

SD511

The map

SDDOT, South Dakota Department of Transportation

14

Words on the map

each one defined by the state

Yes

Roadside cameras

on the same map, pointed at the road itself

The answer

Where the plows are in South Dakota

Roads, not trucks

SDDOT publishes road conditions on SD511 and does not publish the position of its plow trucks.

A reader gets the road as an operator described it, which is a real answer and a different one. Nothing on the map says whether a truck is on the way.

Where it lives: SD511
By phone: 511

Open SD511

South Dakota is one of 31 states in that position, and it is a larger group than most readers expect. Publishing a live fleet means publishing where every truck is at every moment, which is a decision about data and about what a department is willing to be measured on rather than a decision about how much snow a state gets.

What SDDOT does publish is the road, which for the question most people are actually asking is often the better answer. A reader who wants to know whether to drive wants the surface, not the truck. South Dakota also carries roadside cameras on the same map, and a camera pointed at the road two miles ahead settles the question faster than any colour does.

The map

What SD511 shows

SD511 carries traffic cameras and a phone line at 511. SDDOT describes it this way: "SD511 is an interactive map of current road conditions in South Dakota. Travelers can also dial 511 for current road conditions."

Conditions on any state map are reported rather than measured. A plow operator or a trooper enters what they saw, and the map carries it until somebody enters something else, so a colour is a description of the road a while ago on the stretch the person was looking at.

A driver in South Dakota gets a fourteen step colour legend on SD511, from dry all the way to closed, fed by the plow crews themselves, but no way to see where those plows are.

The map: SD511
Cameras: Roadside cameras
Phone line: 511

SD511, South Dakota Department of Transportation

SD511 is an interactive map of current road conditions in South Dakota. Travelers can also dial 511 for current road conditions.

Winter Weather Hub, South Dakota Department of Transportation, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

The words

What South Dakota calls each state of a road

SDDOT runs 14 steps on SD511, from Dry/Normal to Fog/Low Visibility. SDDOT publishes a definition beside them.

These are South Dakota’s words and they stop at the state line. There is no national scale: the 33 states that publish a legend use 166 different labels between them, and only 17 publish what their own labels mean. A phrase that means one thing here means something else, or nothing, one state over.

SDDOT’s own labels, in the order SDDOT lists them. The second column is the state’s own definition.
What the map says	What SDDOT says it means
Dry/Normal	Not defined
Scattered Wet	Not defined
Wet	Not defined
Wet/Snow	Not defined
Scattered Snow/Slush	Not defined
Snow/Slush	Not defined
Wet/Slippery	Not defined
Scattered Ice/Slippery	Not defined
Frost/Ice/Slippery	Not defined
Snow/Ice/Slippery	Not defined
No Travel Advised	Road and weather conditions are unavoidably hazardous and/or impassable. Poor visibility, drifts, blowing snow, ice, and other hazards overwhelm the route.
Closed/Blocked/Impassable	Not defined
Unknown	Not defined
Fog/Low Visibility	Not defined

Read from SDDOT’s own legend on September 23, 2026.

When a road shuts

Who closes a road in South Dakota

State law lets the Secretary of Transportation and the Secretary of Public Safety together restrict or close any state highway for inclement weather, and SDDOT says every closure is posted on the 511 site.

SDCL 31-4-14.1 allows the Secretary of DOT and the Secretary of DPS to restrict the use of any State Highway if they agree the restriction or closing is necessary for the protection and safety of the public due to inclement weather.

Winter Weather Hub, South Dakota Department of Transportation, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

A closure is a different thing from a bad condition, and it is the one entry on the map that carries the force of law behind it. Driving past a closure device is an offence in most states and a rescue bill in several. The map is where the closure is published.

A red and white striped gate padlocked shut across a two lane forest highway with a ROAD CLOSED sign at its centre, photographed at road level along the wet double yellow line — A seasonal gate shut across a state highway, with no snow on the ground yet. Closures like this one go on by the calendar rather than by the storm, and a driver who checks the map in November finds the road already gone. That is the quietest and most useful thing these maps do, and it happens weeks before anybody looks for a plow. “The gates are closed (49097728041)”, Oregon Department of Transportation, CC BY 2.0

South Dakota snow plow tracker questions

Does South Dakota have a snow plow tracker?

Why is there no plow tracker in South Dakota?

What is SD511?

What do the road condition colours mean in South Dakota?

SDDOT runs 14 steps on SD511, from Dry/Normal to Fog/Low Visibility. SDDOT publishes a definition beside them. The 14 labels, in the order SDDOT lists them, are Dry/Normal, Scattered Wet, Wet, Wet/Snow, Scattered Snow/Slush, Snow/Slush, Wet/Slippery, Scattered Ice/Slippery, Frost/Ice/Slippery, Snow/Ice/Slippery, No Travel Advised, Closed/Blocked/Impassable, Unknown, Fog/Low Visibility. Those words are South Dakota's own and do not carry across a state line.

Who closes a road in South Dakota?

State law lets the Secretary of Transportation and the Secretary of Public Safety together restrict or close any state highway for inclement weather, and SDDOT says every closure is posted on the 511 site. SDDOT puts it this way: "SDCL 31-4-14.1 allows the Secretary of DOT and the Secretary of DPS to restrict the use of any State Highway if they agree the restriction or closing is necessary for the protection and safety of the public due to inclement weather."

An overhead message sign on a snowy interstate reading ICY ROADS POSSIBLE USE CAUTION, with traffic in the right lanes and a snow covered carriageway beyond the barrier — A state message sign carrying the same advisory the online map is carrying, to the same drivers, a few minutes later. Most of what a 511 map publishes began as a report from an operations centre like the one running this gantry, which is why the map and the sign almost never disagree and why the map is usually first. “2022-02-14 07 29 49 "Icy Roads Possible - Use Caution" displayed on a variable message sign during a snow shower along southbound Interstate 95 (J.F.K. Memorial Highway) between Exit 67 and Exit 64 on the edge of White Marsh and Rossville in Maryland”, Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0

Plow trackers in other states

South Dakota studded tire datesWhen studs are legal on South Dakota roads, and the penalty when they are not.Mountain pass conditionsThe passes that close, and what each state posts when they do.Studded tire laws by stateThe dates studs are legal, state by state.Lake effect snowWhere the bands set up and what they do to a commute.Plow trackers in every stateWhich states show the trucks, which show only the roads, and what their legends say.

South Dakota read September 23, 2026 from Winter Weather Hub, South Dakota Department of Transportation, linked above. Departments replace these services between seasons and a layer that ran last winter may not run this one, so SDDOT’s own page is the one that governs. Conditions shown on it are reported by people and lag the road. Every state is on the snow plow tracker hub.