BlockLester, Iowa
7 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1955 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Larchwood Township. It lies in ZIP code area 51242. The Survey maps it on the Lester quadrangle. 296 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,411 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresLester grew from 294 to 296 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.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 294 | |
| 2020 | 296 | +2 (+1%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
4 surveys from 7 printed sheetsMatched 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.
- 1955 USGS Sioux Falls quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1958 USGS Sioux Falls quadrangle1:250000
- 1971 USGS Lester quadrangle1:24000
- 1985 USGS Rock Rapids quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Storms near this place
17 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Lester in 17 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 10 hail, 6 thunderstorm wind, 1 flash flood. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Lester | $5,000 | Thunderstorm winds blew down a 30 foot by 60 foot cattle shed and two evergreen trees. |
| May 1994 | Thunderstorm Wind | Lester | $5,000 | An area of thunderstorms moved into the northwest corner of Iowa during the late evening and early morning hours. These storms were not severe generally. One storm caused damage in Lyon County, on a farm southwest of Lester. In what appeared to be a collapsing top, high winds caused some damage on the farm. A loaded wagon was overturned and the window was blown out of one of the farm buildings. |
| July 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Lester | - | Thunderstorm wind gusts were measured by a personal weather station. |
| May 2022 | Thunderstorm Wind | Lester | - | A significant portion of the roof of a livestock building was removed by thunderstorm winds. |
| August 2021 | Thunderstorm Wind | Lester | - | Numerous 3 inch tree limbs were downed by thunderstorm winds, along with several power poles. Crop damage is an estimate from insured losses. Information provided by the United States Department of Agriculture. |
| July 2005 | Flash Flood | Lester | - | Heavy rain caused flooding of numerous roads and fields. |
| August 2002 | Hail | Lester | - | Large hail damaged vehicles. The amount of damage was not known. |
| August 2021 | Hail | Lester | - | no account filed |
| August 2008 | Hail | Lester | - | no account filed |
| June 2006 | Hail | Lester | - | no account filed |
| June 2006 | Hail | Lester | - | no account filed |
| May 2005 | Hail | Lester | - | no account filed |
| September 2005 | Hail | Lester | - | no account filed |
| April 2000 | Hail | Lester | - | no account filed |
| June 1998 | Hail | Lester | - | no account filed |
| August 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Lester | - | no account filed |
| August 1998 | Hail | Lester | - | no account filed |
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 | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Larchwood | 5.4 miles | 7 | |
| Alvord | 7.3 miles | 7 | |
| Rock Rapids | 8.4 miles | 7 | |
| Klondike | 10.7 miles | 10 | |
| Lakewood Corner | 10.7 miles | 7 | |
| Inwood | 10.8 miles | 7 | |
| Lakewood (historical) | 11.3 miles | 7 | |
| Granite | 12.0 miles | 10 |
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 Lester | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2233647 | 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 458294. 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.
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.