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Powderly, Kentucky

16 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1911 and the latest in 1997. It stands in the Greenville census division. It lies in ZIP code area 42367. It stands on Whiskey Run. The Survey maps it on the Greenville quadrangle. 788 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 449 feet above sea level.

Powderly within Muhlenberg County

Population over time

2 figures

Powderly grew from 745 to 788 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
2010745
2020788+43 (+6%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

9 surveys from 16 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

68 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 68 fires within 5 miles of Powderly between 1997 and 2019, burning about 1,783 acres in total. 2 started naturally. 8 were 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
Recreation and ceremony21
Missing data/not specified/undetermined19
Debris and open burning14
Arson/incendiarism8
Railroad operations and maintenance2
Natural2
Equipment and vehicle use1
Smoking1

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
7 September 2002Recreation and ceremony4.0 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
27 September 2004Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
24 September 2008Debris and open burning1.0 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
22 September 2010Debris and open burning15 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
7 August 2002Equipment and vehicle use4.0 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
24 August 2007Railroad operations and maintenance2.0 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
24 August 2007Missing data/not specified/undetermined8.0 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
19 August 1999Natural2.0 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Muhlenberg County

Storms near this place

8 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Powderly in 8 storm reports between 1995 and 2024: 4 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado, 1 heavy rain, 1 hail. 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
June 1998Tornado (F1)Powderly$100,000A rotating thunderstorm tracked from near the Hopkins County line at Bremen southeast across most of the county. A funnel cloud associated with this storm touched down in the Central City/Powderly area and lifted near Beechmont. The main effect of this storm was downed trees and limbs. About a half dozen buildings were damaged by falling trees or limbs. A garage collapsed in Powderly. Several vehicles were damaged, including two that were blown off the road. An estimate of the number of trees down ranged between 50 and 100. No injuries were reported.
January 2008Thunderstorm WindPowderly$25,000About 15 trees fell on roads and into power lines.
May 1995Thunderstorm WindPowderly$10,000Fifty to sixty mph winds were reported in Powderly. Several trees and power lines were blown down.
July 2024Thunderstorm WindPowderly$3,000Thunderstorm winds blew down a tree and several tree limbs down in Greenville.
July 2024Flash FloodPowderly-Water covered N Main St on the north side of Greenville. Overnight rainfall measured 3 inches at a Greenville CoCoRaHS gage while a Mesonet gage 3 miles NW of Powderly measured 4.14 inches.
April 2010Thunderstorm WindPowderly-A trained spotter observed branches were breaking off trees.
April 2010Heavy RainPowderly-A trained spotter reported 1.05 inches of rain in 40 minutes. Minor road flooding occurred countywide.
May 2017HailPowderly-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Muhlenberg 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
Hillside0.8 miles16
Mercer1.5 miles16
Prospect (historical)1.6 miles16
Nebo1.9 miles16
Liberty Hill (historical)2.4 miles15
Morehead2.5 miles16
Greenville2.7 miles16
Luzerne3.0 miles16

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 PowderlyAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2307994The 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 501233. 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.