Prescott, Iowa
9 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1993. It stands in Prescott Township. It lies in ZIP code area 50859. It stands on Mount Zion Branch. The Survey maps it on the Prescott quadrangle. 191 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,194 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresPrescott fell from 257 to 191 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 | 257 | |
| 2020 | 191 | -66 (-26%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
6 surveys from 9 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 Omaha quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1957 USGS Omaha quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Omaha quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1980 USGS Prescott quadrangle1:24000
- 1985 USGS Creston quadrangle1:100000
- 1993 USGS Creston quadrangle1:100000
Fires near this place
17 since 2006Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 17 fires within 5 miles of Prescott between 2006 and 2020, burning about 155 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 | 8 |
| Debris and open burning | 6 |
| Smoking | 1 |
| Railroad operations and maintenance | 1 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 September 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 21 August 2012 | Equipment and vehicle use | 15 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 19 August 2012 | Debris and open burning | 1.5 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 6 June 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2.0 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 14 April 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 13 April 2011 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2.0 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | 1604 TULIP AVE, IA |
| 6 March 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 31 March 2014 | Debris and open burning | 10 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
30 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Prescott in 30 storm reports between 1994 and 2024: 15 hail, 11 thunderstorm wind, 4 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 2015 | Flash Flood | Prescott | $150,000 | Emergency Manager reported several roads in Corning and Prescott have street flooding. Also reported several gravel roads south of Highway 34 are flooded. |
| April 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prescott | $100,000 | no account filed |
| June 2011 | Flash Flood | Prescott | $25,000 | Six to 8 inches of water flowing over a road at Union Ave just south of 150th St. Also occurring at Vanilla Ave and 150th St. |
| May 2004 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prescott | $25,000 | no account filed |
| October 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prescott | $25,000 | no account filed |
| September 2010 | Flash Flood | Prescott | $20,000 | no account filed |
| June 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prescott | $15,000 | no account filed |
| June 2019 | Flash Flood | Prescott | $10,000 | Law enforcement reported water over several roads near Prescott. |
| June 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prescott | $10,000 | A trained spotter estimated wind gusts to 70 MPH with tree and power line damage. |
| March 2011 | Hail | Prescott | $10,000 | no account filed |
| April 2014 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prescott | $5,000 | Trees were blown down by thunderstorm winds. |
| August 2013 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prescott | $5,000 | A large tree several feet in diameter was blown down in a yard. Surrounding corn fields had stalk damage with stripped leaves due to hail and wind. |
| June 2008 | Hail | Prescott | $5,000 | A storm chaser reported golf ball size hail about 10 miles east-northeast of Corning. |
| June 1994 | Hail | Prescott | $5,000 | Thunderstorms formed in Iowa ahead of an approaching weak cold front. There were a total of three factors contributing to the formation of the storms. First off, Iowa was in the left front quadrant of the upper level jet. The second factor was of course the weak frontal boundary. The third factor that became important during the early evening hours was the outflow boundary from the afternoon convection. The airmass was moderately unstable with CAPE values in the 1300 J-Kg-1 range. Thunderstorms fired in northwest Iowa first. The main feature with the storms was hail. The freezing level was around 10,000 feet MSL, with the wet bulb zero in the 7,000 foot range. Most of the storms produced pea- to marble-size hail as they passed. The stronger storms produced hail from dime-size to golf ball-size. Golf ball-size hail was reported in Clay and Audubon Counties. Most other reports were of hail three-quarters of an inch or less in diameter. The storms also produced gusty winds, but winds were generally below 50 mph with the strongest storms. One funnel cloud was observed northeast of Audubon. It did not last long, and did not become a tornado. As the evening progressed, the initial line of storms advanced southeast across central Iowa. The next severe storms developed at the intersection of the outflow boundary from the afternoon convection and the weak frontal boundary. The outflow boundary was easily detected by the WSR-88D radar. The storms that formed in southwest Iowa at the intersection point became severe and produced large hail. One of the storms produced the golf ball-size hail in Audubon County. Though damage was spotty, significant damage was reported to the field crops due to the hail. |
| May 2012 | Hail | Prescott | $3,000 | no account filed |
| June 2008 | Hail | Prescott | $3,000 | no account filed |
| September 2004 | Hail | Prescott | $3,000 | no account filed |
| June 2019 | Hail | Prescott | $2,000 | Public reported golf ball sized hail. |
| June 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prescott | $2,000 | Several 6-8 inch diameter tree limbs down northeast of Prescott. |
| September 2010 | Hail | Prescott | $2,000 | Mostly pea size hail with largest up to the size of quarters. Rainfall was 5.8 inches for the storm. |
| August 2007 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prescott | $2,000 | no account filed |
| June 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prescott | $2,000 | no account filed |
| May 1996 | Hail | Prescott | $2,000 | no account filed |
| April 1999 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prescott | $1,000 | no account filed |
| April 1998 | Hail | Prescott | $500 | no account filed |
| September 2024 | Hail | Prescott | - | Report of 1 to 1.25 inch hail occurring between 2:32 to 2:45 pm near Corning on Carl Rd and 183rd. |
| August 2013 | Hail | Prescott | - | Small branches were also downed by the storm. |
| May 2013 | Hail | Prescott | - | no account filed |
| May 2012 | Hail | Prescott | - | no account filed |
| August 2004 | Hail | Prescott | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stringtown | 4.2 miles | 8 | |
| Icarid (historical) | 4.4 miles | 8 | |
| Queen City (historical) | 5.3 miles | 9 | |
| Mercer | 5.8 miles | 8 | |
| Corning | 7.1 miles | 8 | |
| Carl | 7.2 miles | 9 | |
| Williamson | 8.7 miles | 9 | |
| Mount Etna | 9.3 miles | 9 |
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 Prescott | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1926562 | 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 460439. 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.





