Meservey, Iowa

9 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1984. It stands in Grimes Township. It lies in ZIP code area 50457. The Survey maps it on the Thornton quadrangle. 222 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,250 feet above sea level.

Meservey within Cerro Gordo County

Population over time

2 figures

Meservey fell from 256 to 222 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	256
2020	222	-34 (-13%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

4 surveys from 9 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.

1954 USGS Waterloo quadrangle1:250000, 4 printings
1955 USGS Waterloo quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
1972 USGS Thornton quadrangle1:24000
1984 USGS Iowa Falls quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings

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 Meservey: 1 past producer. None of them still produces. 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	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Unknown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Cerro Gordo County

Storms near this place

15 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Meservey in 15 storm reports between 1998 and 2021: 7 thunderstorm wind, 4 hail, 1 lightning, 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
July 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Meservey	$105,000	no account filed
December 2021	Tornado (EF2)	Meservey	$100,000	This tornado moved into Cerro Gordo County from Franklin County. The tornado produced damage to several farmsteads, mainly to the outbuildings with a couple of outbuildings destroyed northeast of Meservey. The tornado eventually dissipated several miles west of Swaledale.
May 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Meservey	$50,000	no account filed
May 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Meservey	$20,000	Trained spotter reported a roof removed from a farm building near Meservey along with 4 inch diameter tree branches down. Time was estimated from radar.
July 2000	Lightning	Meservey	$8,000	no account filed
August 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Meservey	$5,000	The top one quarter of the tree tops were snapped off of 3 large trees. One was a cottonwood and 2 locust trees.
June 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Meservey	$3,000	Numerous branches were reported down up to 6 inches in diameter.
April 2010	Hail	Meservey	$3,000	no account filed
May 2004	Hail	Meservey	$2,000	no account filed
May 2004	Hail	Meservey	$2,000	no account filed
September 2010	Hail	Meservey	$1,000	Nickel hail was accompanied with heavy rain.
August 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Meservey	-	Small tree limbs down at one to three inches in diameter. Power line was knocked down as well. Report via picture on social media.
June 2018	Heavy Rain	Meservey	-	Public reported heavy rainfall of 3.50 inches over the last 24 hours.
July 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Meservey	-	Trained spotter reported 4 large trees downed from the winds. This is a delayed report and time estimated from radar.
June 2013	Funnel Cloud	Meservey	-	Brief funnel cloud reported with rotation in the clouds.

Every storm recorded in Cerro Gordo 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
Thornton	5.4 miles	9
Swaledale	9.7 miles	9
Ventura Heights	14.1 miles	7
Hurley	14.7 miles	8
Ventura	14.7 miles	7
Burchinal	14.9 miles	7
Rockwell	16.0 miles	9
Clear Lake	16.4 miles	7

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 Meservey	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1930199	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 459009. 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.

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.