Portal, North Dakota
7 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1949 and the latest in 1982. It stands in Portal City. It lies in ZIP code area 58772. The Survey maps it on the Portal quadrangle. 125 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,955 feet above sea level.
On record in Portal
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
Portal State Banklisted 1996- William E. Metzger Houselisted 2007
Population over time
2 figuresPortal fell from 126 to 125 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 | 126 | |
| 2020 | 125 | -1 (-1%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
5 surveys from 7 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.
- 1949 USGS Portal quadrangle1:24000
- 1950 USGS Portal quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1953 USGS Williston quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1957 USGS Williston quadrangle1:250000
- 1982 USGS Kenmare quadrangle1:100000
Fires near this place
7 since 2016Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 7 fires within 5 miles of Portal between 2016 and 2020, burning about 82 acres in total. 1 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 |
|---|---|
| Equipment and vehicle use | 4 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1 |
| Debris and open burning | 1 |
| Natural | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 September 2020 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | North Dakota State Forest Service | GANS |
| 29 July 2017 | Natural | 30 acres | North Dakota State Forest Service | LIGHTNING GRASS FIRE |
| 17 July 2017 | Equipment and vehicle use | 30 acres | North Dakota State Forest Service | FIELD FIRE |
| 2 June 2017 | Equipment and vehicle use | 15 acres | North Dakota State Forest Service | GRASS FIRE |
| 20 May 2016 | Equipment and vehicle use | 6.0 acres | North Dakota State Forest Service | OIL TREATER GRASS FIRE |
| 1 May 2017 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | North Dakota State Forest Service | BRUSH PILE BURN |
| 7 March 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | North Dakota State Forest Service | TRUCK FIRE |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
16 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Portal in 16 storm reports between 1994 and 2022: 10 hail, 5 tornado, 1 thunderstorm wind. 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 2018 | Hail | Portal | $500,000 | There was extensive damage in Portal, including to a fire truck. |
| July 2009 | Tornado (EF1) | Portal | $185,000 | A tornado was reported west of Portal near the Canadian border where it blew out the windows of two vehicles and blew the vehicles into the ditch. The tornado continued east-southeast towards the southern side of the town of Portal, uprooting 12 inch in diameter trees, snapping several power poles, and destroying an old oak barn. The tornado then continued east of Portal, uprooting several more large trees, downing more power lines, and destroying a granary, before dissipating. The damage corresponded to low end EF1 on the Enhanced Fujita Tornado Scale. From that it was determined that wind speeds were around 90 mph. No injuries and no deaths were reported. |
| July 2022 | Thunderstorm Wind | Portal | - | Thunderstorm wind gusts were estimated by a trained spotter. |
| July 2004 | Tornado (F0) | Portal | - | The tornado was thin and ropelike. The tornado was observed on the ground in open country for 2 or 3 minutes before lifting and dissipated. |
| August 2002 | Hail | Portal | - | Severe crop damage reported. |
| July 1998 | Tornado (F0) | Portal | - | Tornado formed in Canada and moved south into the US. multiple funnels were reported. |
| July 1995 | Tornado (F0) | Portal | - | Reported by North Dakota Highway Patrol. |
| July 2020 | Hail | Portal | - | no account filed |
| July 2012 | Hail | Portal | - | no account filed |
| July 2009 | Hail | Portal | - | no account filed |
| June 2004 | Hail | Portal | - | no account filed |
| July 2001 | Hail | Portal | - | no account filed |
| August 1999 | Hail | Portal | - | no account filed |
| June 1998 | Tornado (F0) | Portal | - | no account filed |
| August 1994 | Hail | Portal | - | no account filed |
| August 1994 | Hail | Portal | - | 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.
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 Portal | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2549947 | 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 1030785. 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.




