Emerald, Nebraska

16 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1897 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Middle Creek precinct. It lies in ZIP code area 68528. The Survey maps it on the Emerald quadrangle. 45 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,204 feet above sea level.

Emerald within Lancaster County

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 16 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.

1897 USGS Lincoln quadrangle1:125000, 4 printings
1955 USGS Lincoln quadrangle1:250000, 5 printings
1957 USGS Lincoln quadrangle1:250000
1958 USGS Lincoln quadrangle1:250000
1964 USGS Emerald quadrangle1:24000, 3 printings
1986 USGS Lincoln quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings

Fires near this place

9 since 2015

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 9 fires within 5 miles of Emerald between 2015 and 2020, burning about 73 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	6
Debris and open burning	2
Equipment and vehicle use	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
20 September 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Nebraska Forest Service	not named
5 April 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Nebraska Forest Service	not named
21 April 2020	Debris and open burning	10 acres	Nebraska Forest Service	not named
30 March 2015	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Nebraska Forest Service	not named
29 February 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	6.5 acres	Nebraska Forest Service	not named
27 February 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2.0 acres	Nebraska Forest Service	not named
15 February 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Nebraska Forest Service	not named
27 January 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	50 acres	Nebraska Forest Service	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Lancaster County

Storms near this place

20 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Emerald in 20 storm reports between 1996 and 2026: 12 hail, 5 thunderstorm wind, 2 flash flood, 1 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
July 2024	Flash Flood	Emerald	$100,000	Several training supercell thunderstorms tracked through and south of the city of Lincoln. The first report of flooding came from emergency management, where 48th street just south of Cornhusker Highway was closed due to water over the roadway. Shortly after this, the intersection of Havelock and Cornhusker was also closed due to rising water over the roadway. At midnight, Lincoln Fire and Rescue reported 3 vehicles submerged at the 48th and Cornhusker Highway intersection. Over the next several hours, multiple reports from emergency management, amateur radio, and public sources reported water flowing over numerous roads and intersections extending from the railyards in Lincoln, northeast into southern Waverly.
June 2010	Flash Flood	Emerald	$10,000	Rainfall of 2 to 4 inches fell across the Lincoln area during the evening of 6/20. The heavy rain produced flash flooding across several streets in the Lincoln area including 26th and Superior, Arbor and 56th, a few locations along Highway 77 and near 26th and Saltillo.
April 2026	Hail	Emerald	-	Public report of hail measured up to 1.25 inches in diameter near Lincoln, NE.
April 2026	Hail	Emerald	-	Trained spotter report relayed by emergency management of hail estimated up to 1.75 inches in diameter near Pleasant Dale, NE.
May 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Emerald	-	A 60 miles per hour wind gust was measure by a personal weather station.
July 2024	Hail	Emerald	-	Reports from emergency management, trained spotters and the public was received by the office for a swath of half-dollar sized hail that fell just northwest of Lincoln, Nebraska.
May 2023	Hail	Emerald	-	Emergency manager reported 1-inch hail.
June 2022	Hail	Emerald	-	Trained spotter reported 1.75 inch hail.
May 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Emerald	-	Shingles and siding off of roofs of homes. Trees snapped in a subdivision east of SW 40th Street and south of West A street.
May 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Emerald	-	A trained spotter estimated 70 to 80 mph winds.
May 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Emerald	-	Part of the roof was peeled off the Harley Davidson store.
May 2019	Tornado (EFU)	Emerald	-	Storm chaser video shows a brief tornado spin up in a field. EF scale is unknown.
June 2009	Hail	Emerald	-	Quarter-size hail fell in the western and northwestern sections of Lincoln, from around the Cushman area through 27th and Superior Streets.
August 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Emerald	-	A damaging wind producing MCS tracked across the Lincoln area bringing wind gusts as high as 82 mph which were measured by the Lincoln ASOS at 650 pm CDT. Other wind gusts of similar magnitude were reported just west of Lincoln near Emerald, in downtown Lincoln and at 70th and Cornhusker. The strong winds knocked down numerous large branches and many trees across the area downing power lines and causing some building and vehicle damage. Scattered power outages were reported across town. The winds also swamped several boats in the Capitol Beach area and blew over several semi trailers. Scattered reports of hail accompanied the winds, with the largest being golf ball size near 56th and Van Dorn Streets.
April 2013	Hail	Emerald	-	no account filed
May 2012	Hail	Emerald	-	no account filed
August 2011	Hail	Emerald	-	no account filed
June 2009	Hail	Emerald	-	no account filed
April 2005	Hail	Emerald	-	no account filed
August 1996	Hail	Emerald	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Lancaster 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
Cushman	3.0 miles	16
Huskerville	3.8 miles	16
Denton	5.3 miles	15
Woodlawn	5.4 miles	15
West Lincoln	5.7 miles	16
Countryside Estates	6.3 miles	16
Gaslight Village	6.3 miles	16
Woodlawn Estates	6.3 miles	16

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 Emerald	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q18150633	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 829106. 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.