BlockBefore

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.

Prescott within Adams County

Population over time

2 figures

Prescott 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.

YearPeople Change
2010257
2020191-66 (-26%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 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.

Fires near this place

17 since 2006

Regional 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/undetermined8
Debris and open burning6
Smoking1
Railroad operations and maintenance1
Equipment and vehicle use1

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
25 September 2014Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
21 August 2012Equipment and vehicle use15 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
19 August 2012Debris and open burning1.5 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
6 June 2018Missing data/not specified/undetermined2.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
14 April 2006Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
13 April 2011Missing data/not specified/undetermined2.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resources1604 TULIP AVE, IA
6 March 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
31 March 2014Debris and open burning10 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Adams County

Storms near this place

30 since 1994

Regional 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
July 2015Flash FloodPrescott$150,000Emergency Manager reported several roads in Corning and Prescott have street flooding. Also reported several gravel roads south of Highway 34 are flooded.
April 2006Thunderstorm WindPrescott$100,000no account filed
June 2011Flash FloodPrescott$25,000Six 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 2004Thunderstorm WindPrescott$25,000no account filed
October 2002Thunderstorm WindPrescott$25,000no account filed
September 2010Flash FloodPrescott$20,000no account filed
June 2002Thunderstorm WindPrescott$15,000no account filed
June 2019Flash FloodPrescott$10,000Law enforcement reported water over several roads near Prescott.
June 2010Thunderstorm WindPrescott$10,000A trained spotter estimated wind gusts to 70 MPH with tree and power line damage.
March 2011HailPrescott$10,000no account filed
April 2014Thunderstorm WindPrescott$5,000Trees were blown down by thunderstorm winds.
August 2013Thunderstorm WindPrescott$5,000A 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 2008HailPrescott$5,000A storm chaser reported golf ball size hail about 10 miles east-northeast of Corning.
June 1994HailPrescott$5,000Thunderstorms 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 2012HailPrescott$3,000no account filed
June 2008HailPrescott$3,000no account filed
September 2004HailPrescott$3,000no account filed
June 2019HailPrescott$2,000Public reported golf ball sized hail.
June 2010Thunderstorm WindPrescott$2,000Several 6-8 inch diameter tree limbs down northeast of Prescott.
September 2010HailPrescott$2,000Mostly pea size hail with largest up to the size of quarters. Rainfall was 5.8 inches for the storm.
August 2007Thunderstorm WindPrescott$2,000no account filed
June 1998Thunderstorm WindPrescott$2,000no account filed
May 1996HailPrescott$2,000no account filed
April 1999Thunderstorm WindPrescott$1,000no account filed
April 1998HailPrescott$500no account filed
September 2024HailPrescott-Report of 1 to 1.25 inch hail occurring between 2:32 to 2:45 pm near Corning on Carl Rd and 183rd.
August 2013HailPrescott-Small branches were also downed by the storm.
May 2013HailPrescott-no account filed
May 2012HailPrescott-no account filed
August 2004HailPrescott-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Adams 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
Stringtown4.2 miles8
Icarid (historical)4.4 miles8
Queen City (historical)5.3 miles9
Mercer5.8 miles8
Corning7.1 miles8
Carl7.2 miles9
Williamson8.7 miles9
Mount Etna9.3 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 PrescottAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1926562The 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.