From the National Park website:
Quick Facts about South Dakota Badlands National Park
•Established as a National Monument in 1939.
•Redesignated Badlands National Park in 1978.
•Acreage: 244,000
•Wilderness: 64,144 acres
•Visitation: approximately one million visitors each year from all over the world.
Key Resources:
•Largest expanse of protected prairie ecosystem in the National Park system
•Considered one of the world’s richest mammal fossil beds
•50% of Badlands National Park is comanaged with the Oglala Lakota Nation, the second largest American Indian Reservation in the United States
•Badlands National Park and the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands are the most successful reintroduction sites for the black-footed ferret, one of the world’s rarest mammals.
Climate
The Badlands climate is variable and unpredictable with temperatures ranging from -40 F to 116 F (-40 C to 47 C ). The summers are hot and dry with occasional violent thunderstorms. Winters are typically cold with 12 to 24 inches of total snowfall. Extremely high winds are common year-round. Sudden and dramatic weather changes are common.
