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Balfour, North Dakota

8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1929 and the latest in 1979. It stands in Balfour Township. It lies in ZIP code area 58712. The Survey maps it on the Balfour quadrangle. 20 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,614 feet above sea level.

Balfour within McHenry County

Population over time

2 figures

Balfour fell from 26 to 20 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
201026
202020-6 (-23%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 8 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.

Storms near this place

32 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Balfour in 32 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 13 hail, 9 thunderstorm wind, 6 tornado, 3 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
July 2010Thunderstorm WindBalfour$60,000The strong thunderstorm winds resulted in extensive tree damage and destroyed a pole barn.
July 2010Tornado (EF0)Balfour$30,000A brief tornado touchdown occurred at a farmstead near Balfour. The tornado destroyed an outbuilding and did no other damage. The damage was consistent with EF0 tornado damage from the Enhanced Fujita Scale. From that it was determined that the wind speeds were around 80 mph.
August 1994Thunderstorm WindBalfour$30,000no account filed
July 2025Thunderstorm WindBalfour$15,000The roof of a metal shop was damaged.
July 2010Thunderstorm WindBalfour$15,000The strong thunderstorm winds blew down several trees.
June 1996LightningBalfour$10,000no account filed
September 2025Tornado (EFU)Balfour-The tornado touched down in an open field west of Balfour and impacted no structures before it lifted northeast of Bergen. There was no damage to evaluate. By National Weather Service policy the tornado is rated EF-U (Unknown).
July 2021Thunderstorm WindBalfour-The public reported thunderstorm wind gusts of 60 mph.
July 2021HailBalfour-The hail combined with wind gusts to 65 mph to ruin a garden.
July 2021Thunderstorm WindBalfour-The public reported thunderstorm wind gusts to 65 mph.
July 2021HailBalfour-Drifts of hail were noted as the hail was combined with 60 mph wind gusts. The garden was flattened.
July 2011HailBalfour-There were no reports of damage associated with the large hail. Strong winds accompanied the large hail.
July 2011Thunderstorm WindBalfour-Large hail accompanied the strong winds.
July 2011HailBalfour-There were no reports of damage associated with the large hail.
August 2008Tornado (EF0)Balfour-This tornado remained in open field and impacted no structures. No damage was reported.
May 1998Tornado (F0)Balfour-Brief touch down reported by deputy.
July 2025Thunderstorm WindBalfour-no account filed
September 2025HailBalfour-no account filed
July 2024Thunderstorm WindBalfour-no account filed
July 2015HailBalfour-no account filed
July 2010HailBalfour-no account filed
August 2007HailBalfour-no account filed
July 2006Funnel CloudBalfour-no account filed
June 2004Tornado (F0)Balfour-no account filed
June 2004HailBalfour-no account filed
June 2003HailBalfour-no account filed
June 2002HailBalfour-no account filed
August 2002HailBalfour-no account filed
August 2002HailBalfour-no account filed
July 2000Funnel CloudBalfour-no account filed
July 2000Funnel CloudBalfour-no account filed
June 1999Tornado (F0)Balfour-no account filed

Every storm recorded in McHenry 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
Kief6.6 miles8
Rangeley6.7 miles6
Drake8.8 miles8
Guthrie9.0 miles6
Bergen10.1 miles6
Karlsruhe10.6 miles7
Funston14.7 miles8
Kongsberg15.7 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 BalfourAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2191610The 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 1027800. 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.

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.