Zearing, Iowa
9 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1993. It stands in Lincoln Township. It lies in ZIP code area 50278. The Survey maps it on the Zearing quadrangle. 528 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,056 feet above sea level.
On record in Zearing
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 1 record
Lincoln Township Mausoleumlisted 2007
Population over time
2 figuresZearing fell from 554 to 528 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 | 554 | |
| 2020 | 528 | -26 (-5%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
5 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 Waterloo quadrangle1:250000, 4 printings
- 1955 USGS Waterloo quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1975 USGS Zearing quadrangle1:24000
- 1985 USGS Ames quadrangle1:100000
- 1993 USGS Ames quadrangle1:100000
Fires near this place
2 since 2013Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Zearing between 2013 and 2015, burning about 2 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 burning | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 June 2013 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 21 March 2015 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
40 since 2001Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Zearing in 40 storm reports between 2001 and 2025: 14 thunderstorm wind, 9 heavy rain, 8 hail, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 2018 | Lightning | Zearing | $1,000,000 | A local photographer came across a smoldering wind turbine that had been struck by lightning overnight. It also had previous damage from a tornado earlier in the year. |
| May 2013 | Flash Flood | Zearing | $250,000 | Many roads in the east part of the county experiencing flooding. Water over parts of Highway 65 in Zearing. |
| May 2013 | Flash Flood | Zearing | $100,000 | NWS CO-OP observer and Emergency Manager report flash flooding in and near Zearing. Highway 65 is under water in two places, including south 140th St. County pavement E18 is closed in several places east and west of Zearing. |
| May 2013 | Flash Flood | Zearing | $100,000 | Minerva Creek in Zearing out of its banks and flooding parts of town. |
| September 2011 | Thunderstorm Wind | Zearing | $100,000 | High winds damaged farm buildings and crops. |
| August 2004 | Tornado (F1) | Zearing | $75,000 | Tornado tracked across fields northeast of Zearing and damaged buildings and crops. |
| June 2014 | Thunderstorm Wind | Zearing | $50,000 | Numerous 40 to 50 foot trees down in Zearing. |
| March 2007 | Thunderstorm Wind | Zearing | $30,000 | no account filed |
| August 2010 | Flash Flood | Zearing | $25,000 | Water running over Highway 65 just south of Zearing. |
| June 2014 | Tornado (EF0) | Zearing | $20,000 | This is a multiple segment tornado with three segments that passed through portions of Story, Marshall and Hardin counties. This is the first segment in Story county. This longer track tornado formed about a mile and a half east of Zearing where a farmstead sustained roof damage to multiple buildings. The relatively narrow tornado continued to the NE, with RFD winds destroying 6 grain bins and an outbuilding just south of the track. The tornado then passed into Marshall county. |
| May 2016 | Thunderstorm Wind | Zearing | $10,000 | Coop observer reported several big tree limbs down. |
| August 2004 | Thunderstorm Wind | Zearing | $10,000 | no account filed |
| July 2007 | Thunderstorm Wind | Zearing | $5,000 | no account filed |
| September 2001 | Thunderstorm Wind | Zearing | $5,000 | no account filed |
| October 2004 | Hail | Zearing | $2,000 | no account filed |
| May 2025 | Hail | Zearing | - | Pea to nickel sized hail with a few stones up to quarter sized. |
| July 2024 | Heavy Rain | Zearing | - | Reports of 3.5 to 4 inches of rain in several locations around Zearing. |
| July 2024 | Hail | Zearing | - | MPING report of 1-inch hail. Time of occurrence estimated from radar. |
| July 2024 | Thunderstorm Wind | Zearing | - | Several tree limbs down with the biggest being 15 inches in diameter. |
| August 2022 | Hail | Zearing | - | Golf ball sized hail ongoing at time of report. |
| August 2022 | Thunderstorm Wind | Zearing | - | Widespread one to two inch diameter tree limbs down with larger old branches down. A few windows in town were blown out due to wind driven hail and hail was piled several inches deep in a few locations. |
| August 2022 | Thunderstorm Wind | Zearing | - | Pictures with damage to siding and roofs consistent with damage from wind driven hail. |
| July 2022 | Thunderstorm Wind | Zearing | - | An 18 inch diameter tree snapped. Image posted on social media, time estimated via radar. |
| June 2021 | Funnel Cloud | Zearing | - | Fire Department reported a funnel cloud. |
| August 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | Zearing | - | A trained spotter reported damage to trees and grain bins. Time estimated. |
| June 2018 | Thunderstorm Wind | Zearing | - | Emergency manager relayed trained spotter reports of 60 to 70 mph winds. |
| May 2017 | Hail | Zearing | - | Coop observer reported quarter sized hail. |
| June 2017 | Hail | Zearing | - | Coop observer reported quarter sized hail. This is a delayed report and time estimated from radar. |
| June 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Zearing | - | Coop observer reported estimated wind gusts to 60 mph or more. This is a delayed report and time estimated from radar. |
| September 2016 | Heavy Rain | Zearing | - | Coop observer recorded heavy rainfall of 2.25 inches over the last 24 hours. |
| September 2016 | Heavy Rain | Zearing | - | Coop observer reported heavy rainfall of 3.76 inches. |
| August 2016 | Heavy Rain | Zearing | - | Coop observer reported heavy rainfall of 1.62 inches over the last 24 hours. |
| August 2016 | Heavy Rain | Zearing | - | Coop observer recorded heavy rainfall of 2.78 inches over the last 24 hours. |
| December 2015 | Heavy Rain | Zearing | - | Coop observer reported heavy rainfall of 4.55 inches over the last 48 hours/storm total so far. |
| April 2014 | Heavy Rain | Zearing | - | Storm total rainfall for the two days was 2.55 inches. |
| June 2014 | Heavy Rain | Zearing | - | Twenty four hour rainfall total of 2.44 inches. |
| May 2013 | Heavy Rain | Zearing | - | Twenty four hour rainfall total of 1.33 inches, total 3.17 over two days. |
| June 2010 | Tornado (EF0) | Zearing | - | Brief landspout briefly touched the ground. Numerous other funnels. |
| August 2022 | Hail | Zearing | - | no account filed |
| June 2005 | Hail | Zearing | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| McCallsburg | 4.7 miles | 9 | |
| Fernald | 8.1 miles | 9 | |
| Colo | 9.9 miles | 9 | |
| Roland | 10.9 miles | 15 | |
| Nevada | 12.6 miles | 9 | |
| Story City | 15.9 miles | 15 | |
| Shipley | 16.9 miles | 11 | |
| Bloomington | 17.0 miles | 16 |
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 Zearing | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1929021 | 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 463254. 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.




