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Walnut, Iowa

9 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Layton Township. It lies in ZIP code area 51577. The Survey maps it on the Walnut quadrangle. 747 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,332 feet above sea level.

Walnut within Pottawattamie County

On record in Walnut

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 2 records

Population over time

2 figures

Walnut fell from 785 to 747 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
2010785
2020747-38 (-5%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

5 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

3 since 2014

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 3 fires within 5 miles of Walnut between 2014 and 2017, burning about 38 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
Debris and open burning2
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
22 March 2017Debris and open burning20 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
20 March 2014Equipment and vehicle use10 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
15 March 2015Debris and open burning7.5 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Pottawattamie County

Storms near this place

27 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Walnut in 27 storm reports between 1999 and 2025: 12 hail, 11 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado, 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
April 2025Thunderstorm WindWalnut-Personal weather station measured gust of 60 mph, likely due to the evaporating of anvil precipitation helping to mix down a strong low-level jet.
May 2024Thunderstorm WindWalnut-The office received a report from the public of an empty grain bin that had been blown off its foundation.
May 2023HailWalnut-Public reported 1-inch hail.
June 2023HailWalnut-Trained spotter reported quarter size hail.
August 2023Heavy RainWalnut-Broadcast media relayed a report from the public of nearly 7-inches of rain just south of Walnut and that it was still raining heavily at the time.
April 2022HailWalnut-Trained Spotter reported 1 inch hail.
July 2021Thunderstorm WindWalnut-Iowa State University research station measured a peak wind gust of 62 mph.
July 2021Thunderstorm WindWalnut-Iowa mesonet site measured a peak wind gust of 61 mph.
April 2018HailWalnut-Quarter size hail reported 1 mile west of Walnut.
June 2018Thunderstorm WindWalnut-Large tree limbs blown down in Walnut and one semi-truck blown off of I-80 north of Walnut.
July 2011Thunderstorm WindWalnut-Thunderstorms wind gusts estimated at over 60 mph uprooted several trees and destroyed a barn east of Walnut. Corn was flattened in the area as well.
June 2008HailWalnut-Hail up to 1 inch in diameter fell for about 5 minutes in Walnut.
June 2005Thunderstorm WindWalnut-Thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at 60 mph downed some limbs near Walnut.
May 2004Thunderstorm WindWalnut-Thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at 70 mph blew a truck over on Interstate 80 just north of Walnut. This was from the same storm that produced the tornado that tracked across this area around the same time, and it could have been from rear flank downdraft winds wrapping around the tornado.
May 2004Thunderstorm WindWalnut-Thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at over 60 mph destroyed a barn 5 miles south of Walnut. This was from the same storm that produced the tornado that lifted just to the northwest of this damage report.
June 2000Funnel CloudWalnut-Reported by ham radio operator near Walnut.
August 2000Thunderstorm WindWalnut-Thunderstorm wind gust estimated at around 60 mph by a ham radio operator.
July 2000Tornado (F0)Walnut-A brief touchdown of a very narrow and short-lived tornado. The storm spotter that reported it said it appeared and then dissipated in a matter of 15 or 20 seconds, "it was very snake-like in appearance" according to the spotter.
June 1999Thunderstorm WindWalnut-Tree limbs up to a foot in diameter were downed plus shingles blown off a roof.
June 2014HailWalnut-no account filed
June 2014HailWalnut-no account filed
March 2006HailWalnut-no account filed
May 2004Tornado (F1)Walnut-no account filed
August 2003HailWalnut-no account filed
May 2001HailWalnut-no account filed
August 2000HailWalnut-no account filed
July 2000HailWalnut-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Pottawattamie 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
Avoca6.2 miles10
Newtown (historical)6.3 miles10
Harlan Junction (historical)7.6 miles10
Hancock9.6 miles10
Iola (historical)13.0 miles9
Oakland14.9 miles9
Minden17.0 miles11
York Center19.0 miles11

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 WalnutAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2240007The 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 462626. 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.