BlockBefore

Snowflake, Arizona

15 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1980. It stands in the Snowflake census division. It lies in ZIP code area 85937. It stands on Cottonwood Wash. The Survey maps it on the Snowflake quadrangle. 6,104 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 5,682 feet above sea level.

Snowflake within Navajo County

On record in Snowflake

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register 7 records

Population over time

2 figures

Snowflake grew from 5,590 to 6,104 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
20105,590
20206,104+514 (+9%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

8 surveys from 15 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

46 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 46 fires within 5 miles of Snowflake between 1994 and 2020, burning about 26 acres in total. 3 started naturally. 8 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/undetermined34
Arson/incendiarism8
Natural3
Debris and open burning1

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
30 August 2017Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreTaylor Fire Departmentnot named
30 August 2001Naturalunder an acreFort Apache AgencyCEDARCYN/E
12 August 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreTaylor Fire Department177
21 July 2018Arson/incendiarismunder an acreTaylor Fire Department159
16 July 2018Arson/incendiarismunder an acreTaylor Fire Department152
13 July 2018Naturalunder an acreTaylor Fire Department148
10 July 2001Naturalunder an acreFort Apache AgencyCEDAR CAN
6 June 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreTaylor Fire Department132

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Navajo County

Mines and quarries near this place

5 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 5 workings within 5 miles of Snowflake: 2 producers, 1 unknown, 1 past producer, 1 prospect. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Gypsum-Anhydrite. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Snowflake QuarryGypsum-AnhydritePast ProducerGypsum
Snowflake QuarryGypsum-AnhydriteProspect
Cottonwood Wash PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Gravel PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionUnknown
Sand & Gravel PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer

Every working recorded in Navajo County

Storms near this place

21 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Snowflake in 21 storm reports between 1997 and 2024: 6 flash flood, 5 hail, 3 tornado, 3 heavy rain. 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
July 2024HailSnowflake-One inch diameter hail fell in Snowflake at around 100 PM.
July 2021Heavy RainSnowflake-A rain gauge in the town of Snowflake measured 1.97 inches of rain within an hour.
July 2021Flash FloodSnowflake-The Snowflake-Taylor Police Department reported flash flooding in Snowflake with 6 inches of water over the roadways and houses threatened in the West 1st Street area.
September 2017Flash FloodSnowflake-A thunderstorm with heavy rain caused a flash flood in the normally dry Dry Silver Creek Wash. A video submitted by weather spotter showed the water to be around six feet deep.
June 2016Thunderstorm WindSnowflake-A confirmed gustnado was on the ground for approximately 4 minutes.
July 2015Heavy RainSnowflake-Thunderstorms produced heavy rain over the Concho Highway between Snowflake and Concho with water over the road in many spots.
September 2011HailSnowflake-A trained spotter in Snowflake reported 1 1/4 inch diameter hail and wind gusts of 35 to 40 MPH from 1416 to 1426 MST.
July 2011Tornado (EF0)Snowflake-Possible tornado sighted.
July 2008Flash FloodSnowflake-An area of thunderstorms producing heavy rain (two inches in less than an hour) caused flash flooding over the highway from Snowflake to Concho.
July 2006HailSnowflake-One inch diameter hail was reported 7 miles northeast of Snowflake.
July 2006Flash FloodSnowflake-Two to four feet of water was flowing over the Concho-Snowflake Road.
July 2003Flash FloodSnowflake-A strong thunderstorm caused flooding in Snowflake.
September 2003HailSnowflake-Nickle sized (7/8 inch diameter) hail fell in western Snowflake.
August 2003Funnel CloudSnowflake-Sheriff deputy reported seeing multiple descending/ascending funnel clouds west of Snowflake.
September 2001Tornado (F0)Snowflake-A tornado touched down about 5 miles north of Snowflake. The tornado was first seen at 935 AM MST then a Sheriff Deputy watched the tornado until it lifted at 1003 AM MST. The tornado remained in a rural area and no damage was reported.
September 2001Tornado (F0)Snowflake-A tornado was seen 15 miles west of Snowflake. No damage was reported.
September 2001Heavy RainSnowflake-Heavy rain caused water to flow over road about one mile east of Snowflake.
August 1999HailSnowflake-A weather spotter reported 0.75 inch diameter hail in Snowflake.
December 1998Funnel CloudSnowflake-Snowflake police officers and members of the general public reported a funnel cloud.
August 1997FloodSnowflake-Minor rural road flooding in the Snowflake area.
September 2002Flash FloodSnowflake-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Navajo County

Newspapers printed here

2,398 digitised pages

1 paper published in this town, digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 524 issues, 2,398 pages. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.

NewspaperPublished
The Snowflake Herald1913 to 1969

What the paper printed

17,071 words

Front pages of the local paper, read from the Library of Congress scans: 5 issues spread across its run from 1913 to 1923, 17,071 words in total. Each is reproduced on its own page, exactly as the recogniser returned it.

These pages read less well than anything else here, and the number is worth stating: about three words in four come through cleanly, against nine in ten for the building records. An 1896 broadsheet sets eight-point type in seven columns on microfilm, which is the hardest thing in this archive to read by machine. We tested our own recognisers against the Library's and they were not better, so the Library's text is what appears, with the wholly unreadable columns removed. Read it as a guide to what the paper covered, and follow the link to the scan before quoting anything.

IssuePaper Length
1913-08-01The Snowflake Herald3,408 words
1913-09-12The Snowflake Herald3,139 words
1913-10-17The Snowflake Herald4,104 words
1913-11-28The Snowflake Herald3,587 words
1923-06-29The Snowflake Herald2,833 words

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
Taylor3.4 miles15
Shumway7.4 miles15
Schoens Crossing7.4 miles15
Robinson Trail Crossing10.6 miles16
White Mountain Lakes Estates11.7 miles19
White Mountain Lake12.1 miles19
Burton13.0 miles16
Silver Creek13.8 miles19

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 SnowflakeAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1012644The 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 34591. 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.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

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.