Melbourne, Iowa
8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1984. It stands in Logan Township. It lies in ZIP code area 50162. The Survey maps it on the Melbourne quadrangle. 786 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,043 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresMelbourne fell from 830 to 786 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 | 830 | |
| 2020 | 786 | -44 (-5%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
6 surveys from 8 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.
- 1954 USGS Des Moines quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1956 USGS Des Moines quadrangle1:250000
- 1957 USGS Des Moines quadrangle1:250000
- 1969 USGS Des Moines quadrangle1:250000
- 1975 USGS Melbourne quadrangle1:24000
- 1984 USGS Des Moines quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
20 since 2006Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 20 fires within 5 miles of Melbourne between 2006 and 2019, burning about 104 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 | 15 |
| Debris and open burning | 3 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 1 |
| Smoking | 1 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 August 2013 | Smoking | 2.0 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 15 May 2008 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2.0 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 6 April 2011 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | 2919 LAFAYETTE AVE, MELBOURNE, IA |
| 6 April 2011 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 4.5 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | 2081 265TH ST., MELBOURNE, IA |
| 3 April 2019 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 3.0 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 20 April 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 14 April 2008 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 12 April 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2.0 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
21 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Melbourne in 21 storm reports between 1994 and 2024: 11 hail, 6 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado, 1 funnel cloud. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 2004 | Tornado (F1) | Melbourne | $50,000 | Tornado had an intermittent track and may have infact been three tornadoes that developed in rapid succesion. |
| April 1994 | Thunderstorm Wind | Melbourne | $50,000 | no account filed |
| May 2004 | Thunderstorm Wind | Melbourne | $25,000 | no account filed |
| July 2015 | Thunderstorm Wind | Melbourne | $20,000 | Emergency manager reported trees and power lines down, including a tree on a house. |
| June 2008 | Thunderstorm Wind | Melbourne | $15,000 | Outbuildings were destroyed. |
| May 2004 | Tornado (F1) | Melbourne | $10,000 | Most of track of tornado was in open countryside. No real significant damage occurred. |
| October 1998 | Hail | Melbourne | $10,000 | no account filed |
| April 1999 | Hail | Melbourne | $4,000 | no account filed |
| May 2001 | Hail | Melbourne | $3,000 | no account filed |
| May 2001 | Hail | Melbourne | $3,000 | no account filed |
| May 2019 | Hail | Melbourne | $2,000 | Public reported quarter sized hail, via social media. |
| June 2011 | Hail | Melbourne | $2,000 | no account filed |
| April 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Melbourne | $2,000 | no account filed |
| July 2000 | Hail | Melbourne | $2,000 | no account filed |
| April 1999 | Hail | Melbourne | $2,000 | no account filed |
| May 2024 | Thunderstorm Wind | Melbourne | - | Large branch down. Time estimated by radar. |
| April 2023 | Hail | Melbourne | - | Report via mping. |
| May 2023 | Hail | Melbourne | - | Timing based off radar data. |
| April 2022 | Heavy Rain | Melbourne | - | Storm total of 3.69 inches of rain. |
| July 2021 | Funnel Cloud | Melbourne | - | Trained spotter reports a brief funnel cloud 2 miles ESE of Melbourne. |
| April 2023 | Hail | Melbourne | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Malta | 2.1 miles | 8 | |
| State Center Junction | 3.0 miles | 8 | |
| Edenville | 4.4 miles | 8 | |
| Van | 4.5 miles | 8 | |
| Van Cleve | 4.5 miles | 8 | |
| Rhodes | 4.5 miles | 8 | |
| State Center | 6.1 miles | 9 | |
| Luray | 6.4 miles | 8 |
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 Melbourne | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q944836 | 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 458951. 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.





