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Laurens, Iowa

8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1984. It stands in Swan Lake Township. It lies in ZIP code area 50554. The Survey maps it on the Laurens quadrangle. 1,264 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,309 feet above sea level.

Laurens within Pocahontas County

On record in Laurens

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 1 record

Population over time

2 figures

Laurens grew from 1,258 to 1,264 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
20101,258
20201,264+6 (+0%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

5 surveys from 8 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

9 since 2006

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 9 fires within 5 miles of Laurens between 2006 and 2009, burning about 16 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/undetermined9

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
1 June 2006Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
22 May 2006Missing data/not specified/undetermined3.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
18 April 2006Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
14 April 2006Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
11 April 2009Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
11 April 2009Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
11 April 2009Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
1 April 2009Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Pocahontas County

Storms near this place

31 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Laurens in 31 storm reports between 1994 and 2023: 13 hail, 10 thunderstorm wind, 2 flood, 2 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
June 2008Flash FloodLaurens$150,000Extensive flooding stopping travel and water was backing up into basements.
April 2011HailLaurens$75,000The public reported baseball size hail and some minor urban flooding.
June 2007Thunderstorm WindLaurens$50,000no account filed
June 1998FloodLaurens$50,000no account filed
May 1994HailLaurens$50,000no account filed
April 2013Thunderstorm WindLaurens$40,000An athletic equipment shed and baseball field dugout at the Laurens-Marathon school was destroyed. At least four trees had multiple branches down.
May 2018HailLaurens$15,000Public reported golf ball sized hail via social media.
May 2018HailLaurens$15,000Public reported large hail up to ping pong ball sized covering the ground.
August 2010Thunderstorm WindLaurens$15,000Three foot diameter trees and large limbs were blown down.
May 2006LightningLaurens$15,000no account filed
August 1995HailLaurens$15,000no account filed
August 1995HailLaurens$15,000no account filed
April 2013Thunderstorm WindLaurens$10,000A shed was blown over.
September 2006Thunderstorm WindLaurens$10,000no account filed
July 1997Thunderstorm WindLaurens$10,000no account filed
May 2018HailLaurens$5,000Public reported half dollar sized hail. The report was relayed via county Sheriff's Office.
March 2006Thunderstorm WindLaurens$5,000no account filed
August 2006Thunderstorm WindLaurens$5,000no account filed
May 2001HailLaurens$5,000no account filed
May 2001HailLaurens$3,000no account filed
June 2001HailLaurens$3,000no account filed
August 2005Thunderstorm WindLaurens$2,000no account filed
June 2001HailLaurens$1,000no account filed
May 2023Flash FloodLaurens-Delayed report of extensive flooding in town. Water up against some homes and businesses in town. Time estimated.
May 2023Heavy RainLaurens-A 24 hour total of 6.90 inches of rain, with 3.5 inches of that occurring in the last one hour.
July 2018Thunderstorm WindLaurens-Several reports of 50 to 60 mph winds and tree damage, some of which came from the mPING application. Time estimated from radar.
September 2009Funnel CloudLaurens-Reported by the Iowa State Patrol.
June 2008Heavy RainLaurens-Rainfall of 1.5 to 2 inches.
March 2011HailLaurens-no account filed
June 2010FloodLaurens-no account filed
April 2004HailLaurens-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Pocahontas 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
Ware6.3 miles8
Havelock8.1 miles8
Ridotto9.4 miles8
Pocahontas12.4 miles8
Plover12.5 miles8
Varina13.2 miles8
Rusk13.8 miles8
Rubens Siding14.5 miles8

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 LaurensAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q954646The 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 458243. 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.