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Avoca, Iowa

10 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1994. It stands in Knox Township. It lies in ZIP code area 51521. It stands on Ballard Creek. The Survey maps it on the Avoca quadrangle. 1,683 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,194 feet above sea level.

Avoca within Pottawattamie County

On record in Avoca

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 4 records

Population over time

2 figures

Avoca grew from 1,506 to 1,683 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
20101,506
20201,683+177 (+12%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 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

5 since 2014

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 5 fires within 5 miles of Avoca between 2014 and 2017, burning about 40 acres in total. None started naturally. None 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
Debris and open burning3
Missing data/not specified/undetermined2

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
8 April 2014Missing data/not specified/undetermined4.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
16 April 2014Missing data/not specified/undetermined3.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
22 March 2017Debris and open burning20 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
18 March 2017Debris and open burning5.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
15 March 2015Debris and open burning7.5 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Pottawattamie County

Mines and quarries near this place

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Avoca: 1 producer. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. 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
Avoca PlantSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer

Every working recorded in Pottawattamie County

Storms near this place

28 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Avoca in 28 storm reports between 1994 and 2023: 14 hail, 9 thunderstorm wind, 3 flood, 2 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
May 2007FloodAvoca$1,560,000Heavy rainfall over the weekend of May 4th through the 6th, caused the West Nishnabotna River to flood across Pottawattamie county. The West Nishnabotna River at Hancock crested around 20.5 feet between 1130 pm and midnight May 6th. Flood stage is 14 feet. The river at Hancock first crossed flood stage around 6 am cdt May 6th and didn't drop below flood stage until around 1 pm cdt on the 7th. The flooding affected farmland and many county roads in the area from around Avoca through Hancock. Some homes were also damaged.
November 2015Tornado (EF1)Avoca$250,000The tornado started just south of the County Road 18 to the west of the city of Avoca, Iowa. The tornado tracked to the north northeast through open fields initially. Due to the recent harvest the tornado was easily tracked through the fields due to ground scouring of the left-over corn stocks. The tornado narrowly missed a farmstead along 420th street but did destroy one empty grain bin located across the street from the farm. The tornado continued to track across open fields until it crossed the busy Interstate 80 where a semi was lofted and tossed into a ditch on the north side of the interstate. At this location there were also large hardwood trees that were uprooted. The tornado continued to the northeast into Shelby County.
July 1994Thunderstorm WindAvoca$50,000no account filed
June 2010FloodAvoca$1,000Heavy rain during the early morning hours of June 27th caused the West Nishnabotna River to briefly surpass flood stage around Hancock. The river crested at close to 14.5 feet during the afternoon of the 27th, flood stage is 14 feet. Some minor flooding occurred near a park in Hancock along with agricultural lowlands.
July 2023Tornado (EF0)Avoca-There is a distinct tornado track through crop fields approximately 40 yards wide at the max. The track begins in a soybean field and then moves into the corn field where the narrow track and convergent flow pattern are most pronounced. It crosses a creek, breaks a few branches, and then through another corn field where there is convergent flow into the center of the track from the edges.
June 2022Thunderstorm WindAvoca-Public reported a semi blown over on the interstate.
December 2021Thunderstorm WindAvoca-Storm chaser reported a semi rolled over on I80.
December 2021Thunderstorm WindAvoca-Mesonet station RAVI4 measured a peak wind gust of 67 mph.
September 2019HailAvoca-A trained spotter reported hail up to golf ball size.
September 2019HailAvoca-The public reported hail up to half dollar size.
April 2018HailAvoca-Nickel size hail reported east of Avoca.
June 2018Thunderstorm WindAvoca-Large tree limbs (24 inch in diameter) and trees blown down in Avoca and across US Highway 59.
April 2010HailAvoca-Hail up to 1.5 inches in diameter caused rather extensive damage to cars and even some houses in the Avoca area.
June 2008FloodAvoca-Heavy rain for the second consecutive day produced flooding along the West Nishnabotna River in Pottawattamie county. The river at Hancock crested at 15.8 feet at 745 pm CDT on 6/9, flood stage is 14 feet. The river was above flood stage from around 230 pm on 6/8 until 615 am on 6/9.||The flooding affected mainly agricultural lowlands.
July 2008Thunderstorm WindAvoca-An Iowa Department of Highway Rwis station measured a thunderstorm wind gust of 60 mph along Interstate 80 near Avoca.
June 2007Thunderstorm WindAvoca-The Pottawattamie county dispatch reported that thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at 70 mph downed a few trees in Avoca.
August 2007Thunderstorm WindAvoca-A thunderstorm wind gust estimated at 60 mph was reported near Avoca.
June 2004Thunderstorm WindAvoca-Thunderstorm wind gusts estimated to near 60 mph were reported in Avoca.
July 2003HailAvoca-Some of the hail was still on the ground at daybreak.
March 2017HailAvoca-no account filed
July 2013HailAvoca-no account filed
June 2007HailAvoca-no account filed
May 2005HailAvoca-no account filed
June 2005HailAvoca-no account filed
May 2004HailAvoca-no account filed
July 2003HailAvoca-no account filed
May 2001HailAvoca-no account filed
July 1998HailAvoca-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Pottawattamie 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
Newtown (historical)1.6 miles10
Harlan Junction (historical)2.0 miles10
Hancock6.1 miles10
Walnut6.2 miles9
Iola (historical)10.2 miles9
Minden10.9 miles11
Oakland12.0 miles9
York Center13.5 miles11

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 AvocaAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1914591The 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 454290. 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.