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Sweet Water, Alabama

10 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1953 and the latest in 1986. It stands in the Sweet Water census division. It lies in ZIP code area 36782. It stands on Sheep Branch. The Survey maps it on the Sweet Water quadrangle. 228 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 184 feet above sea level.

Sweet Water within Marengo County

Population over time

2 figures

Sweet Water fell from 258 to 228 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.

YearPeople Change
2010258
2020228-30 (-12%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

5 surveys from 10 printed sheets

Matched 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.

Fires near this place

106 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 106 fires within 5 miles of Sweet Water between 1994 and 2019, burning about 769 acres in total. None started naturally. 4 were 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined49
Debris and open burning31
Recreation and ceremony15
Equipment and vehicle use4
Arson/incendiarism4
Power generation/transmission/distribution2
Smoking1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
7 September 1997Arson/incendiarism10 acresAlabama Forestry Commissionnot named
29 September 2007Missing data/not specified/undetermined5.0 acresAlabama Forestry Commissionnot named
17 September 2006Missing data/not specified/undetermined6.0 acresAlabama Forestry Commissionnot named
14 September 1994Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreAlabama Forestry Commissionnot named
13 September 1997Debris and open burning1.0 acresAlabama Forestry Commissionnot named
12 September 2019Debris and open burningunder an acreAlabama Forestry Commission20190912-12
12 September 2019Debris and open burningunder an acreAlabama Forestry Commission20190912-11
30 August 1994Recreation and ceremony1.5 acresAlabama Forestry Commissionnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Marengo County

Storms near this place

24 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Sweet Water in 24 storm reports between 1997 and 2026: 13 thunderstorm wind, 10 hail, 1 tornado. 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
February 2001Thunderstorm WindSweet Water$15,000Strong thunderstorm winds completely removed the roof of a mobile home. Trees that were blown down by the storm produced damage to two other nearby homes.
May 2001Thunderstorm WindSweet Water$15,000High thunderstorm winds blew trees and power lines down near Sweet Water. The winds also damaged bleachers at a baseball field. No one was injured.
May 1998HailSweet Water$10,000Golf ball size hail was reported north of Sweet Water.
April 2011Thunderstorm WindSweet Water$5,000A few trees were downed in and around Sweet Water.
April 1997Thunderstorm WindSweet Water$5,000A few large limbs were blown down on Highway 10, in the southern part of the county.
May 2003Thunderstorm WindSweet Water$5,000no account filed
August 2006Thunderstorm WindSweet Water$3,000Several trees were blown down between the Lasca Community and the Nicholsville Community.
August 2002Thunderstorm WindSweet Water$3,000Several trees were blown down along SR 10 near Sweet Water.
June 1999Thunderstorm WindSweet Water$3,000Power lines were blown down in Sweet Water.
January 1998Thunderstorm WindSweet Water$3,000no account filed
August 2006Thunderstorm WindSweet Water$2,000Several Trees were blown down on CR-16.
March 2026Thunderstorm WindSweet Water-Several trees were downed, with power outages, in the southern part of Marengo County, mainly the Nanafalia and Sweet Water areas.
June 2023HailSweet Water-Quarter size hail in Sweet Water.
March 2021Tornado (EF0)Sweet Water-National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in southern Marengo County and determined that it was consistent with an EF0 tornado, with maximum winds near 65 mph. The tornado began near 3rd Avenue in Sweet Water and proceeded north crossing Highway 10. The tornado continued north of Sweet Water, dissipating near Beaver Creek Road. Damage mainly consisted of broken large tree branches.
June 2019Thunderstorm WindSweet Water-A few trees uprooted near the town of Sweet Water.
June 2018Thunderstorm WindSweet Water-Several trees uprooted in the town of Sweet Water.
March 2005HailSweet Water-Dime to penny size hail briefly covered the ground around Sweetwater. The hail was observed to near the Magnolia community.
March 2005HailSweet Water-Penny size hail was reported in the Half Acre Community. The hail may have been larger but fell in rural western Marengo County.
May 2003HailSweet Water-Penny size hail fell in and around Sweet Water.
June 1998HailSweet Water-Dime size hail was reported covering the ground in Sweet Water according to the Fire Department.
June 2011HailSweet Water-no account filed
May 2003HailSweet Water-no account filed
May 2001HailSweet Water-no account filed
January 1998HailSweet Water-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Marengo County

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 PlaceDistance Sheets
Coxheath2.4 miles10
Vangale2.6 miles10
Aimwell2.6 miles10
Exmoor2.8 miles10
Moss (historical)3.4 miles9
Wayne3.6 miles10
Marengo4.0 miles10
Doyle4.6 miles10

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 Sweet WaterAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q66621The 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 153626. 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.