Elvira, Iowa

19 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1892 and the latest in 1991. It stands in Center Township. It lies in ZIP code area 52732. The Survey maps it on the Camanche quadrangle.

Elvira within Clinton County

Topographic sheets covering this place

10 surveys from 19 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.

1892 USGS Goose Lake quadrangle1:62500
1894 USGS Goose Lake quadrangle1:62500, 3 printings
1899 USGS Clinton quadrangle1:125000
1899 USGS Cordova quadrangle1:125000, 4 printings
1953 USGS Camanche quadrangle1:24000, 3 printings
1958 USGS Davenport quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
1961 USGS Davenport quadrangle1:250000
1962 USGS Davenport quadrangle1:250000
1984 USGS Davenport quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
1991 USGS Camanche quadrangle1:24000

Fires near this place

2 since 2010

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Elvira between 2010 and 2018, burning about 53 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2

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

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
1 April 2010	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	50 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	5930 44TH AVENUE S, CLINTON, IOWA
19 March 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	3.0 acres	Iowa Department of Natural Resources	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Clinton County

Storms near this place

12 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Elvira in 12 storm reports between 1994 and 2024: 5 hail, 5 thunderstorm wind, 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
June 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Elvira	$50,000	A very unstable airmass remained in place over Iowa. The upper level high pressure built over the area. Meanwhile, a weak upper level disturbance moved west into the state. During the afternoon, the combination of heating and the upper level system was enough to finally break the cap. Thunderstorms fired rapidly by the early afternoon hours. The storms were mainly over the east half of Iowa. The strongest storms were over the north-central counties. Scattered reports of gusty winds were received over east-central Iowa. Trees were downed in Cedar County, a large machine shed was destroyed in Clayton County, and wind damage was also reported in Clinton County. The storms became tornadic over north-central Iowa. The reports of funnel clouds were too numerous to mention. Several touch downs occurred. Since wind flow and shear were both weak, the tornadoes were short lived. All but one of them were very weak tornadoes that touched down briefly in fields. Although the tornadoes were weak, a report of the tornado in southern Kossuth County indicated that it was between 40 and 100 meters in width. A strong tornado touched down in Garner, then moved south for about six miles. At Garner, the tornado struck a country club. Windows and doors were blown out at the club. A cadillac was picked up and tossed 250 feet onto a green at the club. The car was demolished. Four golf carts were also lifted and thrown through the air by the tornado. Windows were also blown out of a house in a nearby residential area. After passing through the country club, the tornado caused structural damage to two other businesses. The brick wall on one building was removed. At the other, damage to the building structure was reported, though not as serious. The rest of the tornado track was through open country south of Garner. The other fairly strong tornado touched down south of Britt. It caused damage to the two farmsteads that it moved through. The first farmstead it hit was vacant, the second was not. No injuries were reported, however several farm buildings and two silos were destroyed. The tornado formed first as two separate funnel clouds. The two merged, descended, and became a tornado south of Britt. The tornado moved southwest and became stationary in a field. The tornado reported grew in size as it remained stationary. It remained for a while before dissipating after a few minutes.
July 2003	Hail	Elvira	$15,000	no account filed
August 1994	Hail	Elvira	$5,000	no account filed
May 2024	Tornado (EFU)	Elvira	-	A public video showed a tornado occurring in an open field near Elvira in Clinton County. No damage was reported, so the tornado is classified as EF-Unknown.
June 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Elvira	-	A photo of a machine shed destroyed with damage also to home and other sheds. A large overhead door was blown out.
August 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Elvira	-	A NWS Storm Survey Team found extensive damage to corn in the area. In Elvira, the roof of a large farm building was removed by the wind. Trees were also snapped in town. The wind speeds were estimated to be in the 80 to 90 MPH range.
May 2016	Hail	Elvira	-	Hail size was reported from public with a picture received from social media.
May 2016	Tornado (EF0)	Elvira	-	A traveler spotted a funnel going up and down which briefly touched down in a field with dirt debris about 2 miles northeast of Elvira. This report was relayed by the Clinton County Law Center.
May 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Elvira	-	Law enforcement reported a 10x15 foot building blown into the roadway in the northwest part of Clinton.
June 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Elvira	-	Trees were downed on the north side of Highway 30 near the Low Moor exit. Time estimated.
June 2011	Hail	Elvira	-	no account filed
June 2009	Hail	Elvira	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Clinton 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.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Low Moor	3.9 miles	19
Ramessa (historical)	4.1 miles	18
Sixmile	4.7 miles	16
Malone	5.5 miles	18
Chaney (historical)	5.8 miles	19
Tenmile	6.1 miles	16
Camanche	7.2 miles	19
Shaffton	7.2 miles	19

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 Elvira	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q3250732	The 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 456352. 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.