BlockBefore

Palmer, Iowa

8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1984. It stands in Bellville Township. It lies in ZIP code area 50571. The Survey maps it on the Palmer quadrangle. 138 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,240 feet above sea level.

Palmer within Pocahontas County

Population over time

2 figures

Palmer fell from 165 to 138 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
2010165
2020138-27 (-16%)

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

6 since 2005

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 6 fires within 5 miles of Palmer between 2005 and 2009, burning about 72 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/undetermined6

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
15 April 2008Missing data/not specified/undetermined60 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
19 March 2009Missing data/not specified/undetermined2.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
7 November 2005Missing data/not specified/undetermined10 acresIowa State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
3 November 2005Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIowa State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
2 November 2005Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIowa State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
10 November 2005Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIowa State Fire Marshal's Officenot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Pocahontas County

Storms near this place

23 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Palmer in 23 storm reports between 1998 and 2024: 14 hail, 4 thunderstorm wind, 3 tornado, 2 funnel cloud. The reports record 1 injury. 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
April 2022Tornado (EF2)Palmer1 hurt, $150,000Tornado developed a few miles east northeast of Palmer and moved northeast to north for the entire path. The tornado destroyed a farm buildings and also snapped several power poles producing the EF2 rating. Otherwise, much of the path was in rural cropland with a large dust cloud enveloping the tornado for much of its life.
September 1998HailPalmer$35,000no account filed
July 2000Thunderstorm WindPalmer$15,000no account filed
June 1998Thunderstorm WindPalmer$15,000no account filed
March 2006Thunderstorm WindPalmer$10,000no account filed
August 2002Thunderstorm WindPalmer$10,000no account filed
June 2011HailPalmer$3,000Half inch diameter hail and two inch tree limbs broken by wind.
June 2011HailPalmer$2,000Mostly quarter size with a few larger. Crop damage reported.
May 2004HailPalmer$2,000no account filed
May 2004HailPalmer$2,000no account filed
July 2009HailPalmer$1,000no account filed
May 2005HailPalmer$1,000no account filed
August 2003HailPalmer$1,000no account filed
April 2024Tornado (EF0)Palmer$200Storm chaser had video of entire life cycle of tornado. The tornado developed on the edge of a farmstead producing minor tree damage. The tornado continued northeast through rural farmland before turning northwest. The tornado remained in open farmland for the remainder of its path before dissipating.
December 2021Tornado (EFU)Palmer-This tornado moved through both Pocahontas and Humboldt Counties. Tornado path found via high resolution satellite imagery and radar data. No damage was reported, hence the EFU rating. The tornado passed just west and north of Gilmore City, entering into Humboldt County north of Gilmore City.
July 2020Funnel CloudPalmer-Multiple reports via social media of a funnel cloud southeast of Pocahontas and southwest of Gilmore City.
April 2017HailPalmer-Trained spotter reported pea to nickel size hail in Palmer.
August 2021Funnel CloudPalmer-no account filed
May 2004HailPalmer-no account filed
June 2004HailPalmer-no account filed
June 2004HailPalmer-no account filed
July 2000HailPalmer-no account filed
September 1998HailPalmer-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
Blanden (historical)4.2 miles9
Westview4.5 miles8
Lizard (historical)4.7 miles8
Rusk7.6 miles8
Pocahontas8.1 miles8
Rolfe13.2 miles8
Rubens Siding13.2 miles8
Fonda13.4 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 PalmerAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1926415The 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 459998. 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.