Cotesfield, Nebraska
12 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1899 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Cotesfield precinct. It lies in ZIP code area 68835. It stands on Fish Creek. The Survey maps it on the Cotesfield quadrangle. 29 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,896 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresCotesfield fell from 46 to 29 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 | 46 | |
| 2020 | 29 | -17 (-37%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
5 surveys from 12 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.
- 1899 USGS Loup quadrangle1:125000, 2 printings
- 1953 USGS Cotesfield quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1955 USGS Broken Bow quadrangle1:250000, 5 printings
- 1956 USGS Broken Bow quadrangle1:250000
- 1985 USGS St. Paul quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
3 since 2011Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 3 fires within 5 miles of Cotesfield between 2011 and 2013, burning about 185 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 |
|---|---|
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 1 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 April 2011 | Natural | 20 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 5 October 2011 | Equipment and vehicle use | 162 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 26 January 2013 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | 3.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
19 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Cotesfield in 19 storm reports between 1994 and 2024: 14 hail, 2 flash flood, 2 flood, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 2019 | Flood | Cotesfield | $3,000,000 | no account filed |
| May 2024 | Flood | Cotesfield | $500,000 | Following the 2 to 5 inches that fell across the area on the 30th, another round of showers and thunderstorms brought an additional 1 to 2 inches of rain to the area during the early afternoon hours of the 31st. Numerous rural roads remained closed, and some bridges were washed out. Farwell was accessible only by rural roads, as the main paved entry into town remained covered in water. At least one resident was unable to access their home for a period of time due to the floodwaters. Emergency management reported that one resident who lived along Turkey Creek had to be evacuated from their home. The automated gauge on Turkey Creek showed a rapid rise on the 30th, reaching its flood stage of 17.0 feet around 10:45 AM CDT on the 30th. It remained in or near flood stage on into the evening of the 31st, peaking at a stage of 20.4 feet around 5 PM CDT on the 30th, stopping just below its record stage of 20.74 feet from March of 2019. |
| May 2024 | Flash Flood | Cotesfield | $500,000 | Radar estimates and local reports showed that between 2 and 5 inches of rain fell across the area, mostly in a period of two hours from approximately 7AM to 9AM. The highest amounts occurred in central and west-central portions of Howard County. Emergency management and law enforcement reported that water was covering parts of Highway 92 in the Farwell area as well as parts of Highway 11 in the Elba area. Water was running over rural roads, and numerous rural roads ended up being closed. Small creeks were flooded, with this water eventually making into and flooding the Turkey Creek, which runs north of Dannebrog and eventually into the Middle Loup River. |
| April 2024 | Hail | Cotesfield | $200,000 | no account filed |
| September 2019 | Hail | Cotesfield | $75,000 | no account filed |
| June 2011 | Hail | Cotesfield | $50,000 | no account filed |
| October 2013 | Hail | Cotesfield | $25,000 | Quarter to ping pong size hail occurred. Moderate to heavy rain also occurred. |
| June 2014 | Hail | Cotesfield | $25,000 | no account filed |
| July 2004 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cotesfield | $25,000 | no account filed |
| June 2008 | Flash Flood | Cotesfield | $20,000 | Around two inches of rain fell on already saturated ground resulting in areas of flash flooding. Law enforcement reported water running across Highway 11 at 1612pm CST. Area newspapers reported considerable flooding across northern Howard County northward into southern Greeley County. |
| May 1998 | Hail | Cotesfield | $20,000 | no account filed |
| May 1998 | Hail | Cotesfield | $20,000 | no account filed |
| August 2014 | Hail | Cotesfield | - | no account filed |
| May 2002 | Hail | Cotesfield | - | no account filed |
| July 2002 | Hail | Cotesfield | - | no account filed |
| April 2001 | Hail | Cotesfield | - | no account filed |
| July 2000 | Hail | Cotesfield | - | no account filed |
| July 1994 | Hail | Cotesfield | - | no account filed |
| June 1994 | Hail | Cotesfield | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dannevirke | 4.7 miles | 12 | |
| Elba | 6.0 miles | 11 | |
| Paplin (historical) | 7.7 miles | 12 | |
| Farwell | 9.8 miles | 12 | |
| Midway | 10.6 miles | 12 | |
| Saint Paul | 13.5 miles | 14 | |
| Cushing | 14.6 miles | 14 | |
| Nysted | 15.4 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 Cotesfield | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2697319 | 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 828358. 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.




