Chester, Nebraska

13 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1898 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Chester precinct. It lies in ZIP code area 68327. The Survey maps it on the Chester quadrangle. 224 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,631 feet above sea level.

Chester within Thayer County

Population over time

2 figures

Chester fell from 232 to 224 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	232
2020	224	-8 (-3%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 13 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.

1898 USGS Hebron quadrangle1:125000, 2 printings
1955 USGS Lincoln quadrangle1:250000, 5 printings
1957 USGS Lincoln quadrangle1:250000
1958 USGS Lincoln quadrangle1:250000
1960 USGS Chester quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
1985 USGS Fairbury quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings

Fires near this place

2 since 2013

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Chester between 2013 and 2017, burning about 36 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
Equipment and vehicle use	2

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
29 October 2017	Equipment and vehicle use	1.0 acres	Nebraska Forest Service	not named
22 October 2013	Equipment and vehicle use	35 acres	Nebraska Forest Service	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Thayer County

Storms near this place

39 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Chester in 39 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 16 hail, 13 thunderstorm wind, 4 tornado, 3 heavy rain. 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
May 2015	Tornado (EF2)	Chester	$1,000,000	This is a continuation of the tornado that touched down in the Scandia area of Republic County, KS. This tornado was rated an EF2, with an estimated peak wind speed of 120 MPH. The strongest and widest portion of this tornado occurred in Republic County, KS.\|\|In the Thayer County, NE, portion of this tornado, trees were damaged and pivots were overturned. Power poles and grain bins were damaged. One home southeast of Hebron had its roof partially removed. This tornado crossed Highway 81 approximately 6 miles south of Hebron.
September 2015	Hail	Chester	$1,000,000	Photos received via social media showed several hailstones between 2 and 3 inches in diameter. There were numerous reports of significant vehicle, home window and siding damage in the area. There was also damage to crops.
May 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	$500,000	Wind gusts estimated to be near 70 MPH resulted in damage in the Chester area. A local business had a window blown out. Tree damage was widespread, with the largest downed limbs up to 10 to 12 inches in diameter. Power outages occurred. At least 3 pivots were tipped over east of Chester on the east side of Highway 81. Blowing dust caused reductions in visibility down to less than one-quarter of a mile.
May 2004	Tornado (F0)	Chester	$250,000	A small tornado was reported in southeast Thayer county. This was the final tornado of the day in south-central Nebraska. Damage was limited to trees, power poles and center pivot irrigation systems.
April 2016	Flash Flood	Chester	$150,000	Flash flooding struck western Thayer and eastern Nuckolls County on this Tuesday evening/night, thanks to a fairly narrow, north-south oriented swath of at least 4-6 inches of rain. The greatest flooding impacts occurred in the community of Deshler, as both the Spring Creek and Snake Creek flooded, along with general street flooding. The fire chief evacuated approximately 45 residents from a local nursing and assisted living home. A few residents on the south side of town on 4th Street were also evacuated. A person was trapped south of Snake Creek Bridge on 4th Street, due to the quickly rising water. Flooding also closed Highway 136 between Deshler and Ruskin for several hours, as storm chaser video depicted a roughly 200-yard stretch of water rushing across the highway three miles west of Deshler around 7:45 p.m. CDT. In addition to Highway 136, a number of rural county roads were covered with water due to flooding from nearby Spring Creek. Although general flooding of mainly low-lying areas persisted into the day of Wednesday the 27th, the worst of the more serious flash flooding eased during the pre-dawn hours.
June 1998	Tornado (F0)	Chester	$150,000	no account filed
May 2021	Hail	Chester	$100,000	Hail ranged from dime to golf ball size in Chester.
May 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	$100,000	Wind gusts estimated as high as 80 mph resulted in a roof being blown off a grain company building in town.
June 2015	Hail	Chester	$50,000	Hail up to 2 in diameter broke the windshield of a vehicle.
May 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	$50,000	Wind gusts estimated at 70 mph caused damage to the grain elevator in Chester.
June 2018	Flash Flood	Chester	$15,000	The Hubbell Fire Chief reported water over the road near the intersection of Highway 8 and 6200 Road, located two miles east of Chester. There was also on unofficial report of 7 inches of rain five miles south-southeast of Gilead.
June 2009	Hail	Chester	$15,000	no account filed
June 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	$10,000	no account filed
April 2010	Hail	Chester	$5,000	no account filed
June 2008	Hail	Chester	$5,000	no account filed
August 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	-	A wind gust 60 MPH was measured by a mesonet station located three miles north of Chester. There were public reports of tree damage in Chester.
June 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	-	A wind gust of 60 MPH was measured by a mesonet station located two miles north of Chester.
August 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	-	A wind gust of 62 MPH was measured by a mesonet station located three miles north of Chester.
June 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	-	A wind gust of 61 MPH was measured by a mesonet station located three miles north of Chester.
June 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	-	Wind gusts were estimated to be near 60 MPH. Some tin was blown into a tree.
May 2018	Tornado (EF0)	Chester	-	This EF-0 rated tornado moved in from Republic County, Kansas. The tornado was captured on video by a local farmer. The video and radar was used to determine the time. This tornado did not cause any significant damage as it moved through an open field, and the maximum wind speed was estimated to be 70 MPH.
May 2015	Heavy Rain	Chester	-	A 24 hour storm total rainfall amount of 5.23 inches was reported.
July 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	-	This gust was measured by the PECAN project team.
October 2013	Heavy Rain	Chester	-	A rainfall total of 3.82 inches occurred.
June 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	-	A 60 mph wind gust was reported from the general public.
September 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	-	Wind gusts were estimated at 60 mph along Highway 81.
July 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	-	Wind gusts estimated at 60 MPH lasted approximately 10 minutes.
August 2010	Heavy Rain	Chester	-	Rainfall total was 4 inches.
July 2023	Hail	Chester	-	no account filed
June 2017	Hail	Chester	-	no account filed
September 2014	Hail	Chester	-	no account filed
July 2011	Hail	Chester	-	no account filed
August 2010	Hail	Chester	-	no account filed
April 2009	Hail	Chester	-	no account filed
April 2005	Hail	Chester	-	no account filed
April 2005	Funnel Cloud	Chester	-	no account filed
May 2003	Hail	Chester	-	no account filed
July 1998	Hail	Chester	-	no account filed
June 1994	Hail	Chester	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Thayer 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.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Stoddard (historical)	5.4 miles	13
Hubbell	6.4 miles	11
Byron	8.0 miles	12
Deshler	10.6 miles	13
Hebron	10.9 miles	13
Williams (historical)	11.2 miles	11
Gilead	14.4 miles	11
Belvidere	17.0 miles	12

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 Chester	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q593245	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 828119. 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.