Clitherall, Minnesota
13 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1912 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Clitherall City. It lies in ZIP code area 56524. The Survey maps it on the Battle Lake quadrangle. 62 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,348 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresClitherall fell from 112 to 62 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 | 112 | |
| 2020 | 62 | -50 (-45%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
8 surveys from 13 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.
- 1912 USGS Battle Lake quadrangle1:62500
- 1914 USGS Battle Lake quadrangle1:62500, 3 printings
- 1953 USGS Brainerd quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1957 USGS Brainerd quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Brainerd quadrangle1:250000
- 1965 USGS Brainerd quadrangle1:250000
- 1973 USGS Battle Lake quadrangle1:24000
- 1986 USGS Battle Lake quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
In the county-history sources
72 words on this townshipOtter Tail County, Minnesota, in the World War;, published 1919 has no passage naming this settlement, which was common for smaller places. Its township is covered in full.
The chapter on Clitherall City covers the township.
Read the chapter on Clitherall City - 72 words.
Fires near this place
5 since 1992Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 5 fires within 5 miles of Clitherall between 1992 and 2010, burning about 50 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 | 3 |
| Smoking | 1 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 April 1992 | Smoking | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 3 April 2010 | Debris and open burning | 2.0 acres | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 16 April 2006 | Debris and open burning | 3.0 acres | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 15 April 1998 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 17 December 2002 | Debris and open burning | 44 acres | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
12 since 1999Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Clitherall in 12 storm reports between 1999 and 2025: 5 thunderstorm wind, 5 hail, 2 tornado. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 2025 | Tornado (EFU) | Clitherall | - | Photo evidence from chasers and reports called in via trained spotters indicate a brief tornado in this area with no damage reported. |
| July 2023 | Hail | Clitherall | - | Hail between ping pong ball sized and golf ball sized. |
| July 2023 | Hail | Clitherall | - | MPING report of quarter sized hail 3 ENE of Clitherall. |
| July 2023 | Hail | Clitherall | - | MPING report from same location outside of Clitherall of ping-pong ball sized hail. |
| June 2022 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clitherall | - | Several large branches were down and power lines were damaged. |
| May 2022 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clitherall | - | A peak wind of 68 mph was measured at a personal weather station on the north central shore of West Battle Lake. |
| May 2022 | Tornado (EF0) | Clitherall | - | This tornado began about 3 miles north northeast of Clitherall, MN as a waterspout on West Mason Lake and lasted for about a minute. The area showed several large 6-10 inch diameter tree branches broken along the north shore. Peak winds were estimated at 85 mph, giving this tornado an EF0 rating, with a path length of 1 mile. |
| July 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clitherall | - | Large branches were blown down. |
| August 2018 | Hail | Clitherall | - | Dime to half dollar sized hail fell. |
| August 2018 | Hail | Clitherall | - | no account filed |
| June 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clitherall | - | no account filed |
| July 1999 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clitherall | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nirvana | 2.7 miles | 13 | |
| Battle Lake | 4.4 miles | 13 | |
| Vining | 5.1 miles | 13 | |
| Woodland Park | 5.7 miles | 13 | |
| Inglewood | 5.9 miles | 13 | |
| Henning | 10.4 miles | 9 | |
| Ottertail | 11.1 miles | 13 | |
| Amor | 11.3 miles | 13 |
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 Clitherall | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1022994 | 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 641341. 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.







