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Moorhead, Iowa

8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1980. It stands in Spring Valley Township. It lies in ZIP code area 51558. It stands on Elk Creek. The Survey maps it on the Moorhead quadrangle. 199 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,125 feet above sea level.

Moorhead within Monona County

On record in Moorhead

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 4 records

Population over time

2 figures

Moorhead fell from 226 to 199 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
2010226
2020199-27 (-12%)

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

1 since 2018

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 1 fire within 5 miles of Moorhead in 2018, burning about 400 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/undetermined1

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
23 April 2018Missing data/not specified/undetermined400 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named

Every fire recorded in Monona County

Storms near this place

18 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Moorhead in 18 storm reports between 1994 and 2024: 10 hail, 5 thunderstorm wind, 3 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
June 1994HailMoorhead$5,000no account filed
April 2024Tornado (EF0)Moorhead-A short-lived tornado developed in an agricultural field and moved generally northeast across fields and pastureland, damaging outbuildings of farmsteads near the intersection of 280th and Poplar Roads. The tornado appeared to dissipate in pastureland before reaching State Highway 183. Peak winds were estimated at 85 miles per hour. The tornado reached a maximum width of 100 yards, with an average width estimated at 50 yards.
July 2022Thunderstorm WindMoorhead-Law enforcement reported trees and branches down.
June 2011Tornado (EF1)Moorhead-A NWS storm survey determined a tornado tracked around 7 miles southeast of the Turin area. The tornado touched down near county roads E60 and L14 producing sporadic tree damage. The tornado tracked north northeast hitting a farmstead along L14 uprooting trees, downing power lines and destroying a grain bin. The tornado then moved across the Loess Hills producing varying degrees of tree damage. After crossing county roads E54 and 277th street additional tree and farm outbuilding damage occurred. Part of a roof of a farm house was removed near 258th Street with outbuildings also damaged in that area. The tornado knocked down some power lines near county road L16 before lifting in that area. The average path width was determined to be around 300 yards.
May 2008Tornado (EF1)Moorhead-This tornado initially touched down in a grove of trees in a rural area southwest of Moorhead. As it tracked east it hit a farmstead causing house and outbuilding damage and also severely damaged a grove of walnut trees. Before the tornado lifted, it damaged two other separate groves of cottonwood trees and snapped a 3 foot diameter oak tree at its base and damaged a chicken coop at another farmstead. The path width of the tornado damage was generally less than 100 yards, although it reached a maximum width of around 200 yards.
July 2007Thunderstorm WindMoorhead-Thunderstorm winds estimated at 60 mph downed some small tree limbs in town.
April 2006Thunderstorm WindMoorhead-A thunderstorm wind gust of around 60 mph was reported near Moorhead.
July 1999Thunderstorm WindMoorhead-Large tree limbs broken off.
July 1998Thunderstorm WindMoorhead-Trees blown down.
August 2011HailMoorhead-no account filed
May 2007HailMoorhead-no account filed
March 2007HailMoorhead-no account filed
March 2006HailMoorhead-no account filed
April 2004HailMoorhead-no account filed
April 2004HailMoorhead-no account filed
September 2004HailMoorhead-no account filed
August 2001HailMoorhead-no account filed
August 2000HailMoorhead-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Monona 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
Soldier5.8 miles8
Turin9.0 miles9
Castana10.9 miles9
Ute11.7 miles8
Blencoe12.2 miles8
Kennebec14.8 miles9
Onawa14.9 miles9
Mapleton17.1 miles9

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 MoorheadAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1926536The 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 459216. 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.