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Guide Rock, Nebraska

11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1898 and the latest in 1985. It stands in District 1. It lies in ZIP code area 68942. It stands on Minnie Creek. The Survey maps it on the Guide Rock quadrangle. 199 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,667 feet above sea level.

Guide Rock within Webster County

Population over time

2 figures

Guide Rock fell from 225 to 199 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
2010225
2020199-26 (-12%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 11 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.

Fires near this place

2 since 2009

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Guide Rock between 2009 and 2019, burning about 42 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
Natural1
Debris and open burning1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
4 August 2019Natural2.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
31 January 2009Debris and open burning40 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Webster County

Storms near this place

44 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Guide Rock in 44 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 28 hail, 10 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado, 2 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
May 2024Tornado (EF0)Guide Rock$75,000This tornado danced its way along an approximately six mile path in rural eastern Webster County and ended in far western Nuckolls County. It started just west of Highway 78 between 5-6 miles north of Guide Rock. The worst damage along its path occurred at a nearby farmstead, where there was widespread tree damage and minor damage to the home. The tornado crossed the highway and sporadically damaged some trees for the next couple of miles. The tornado eventually grazed another farmstead and damaged a couple areas of cedar trees. A local resident noted fence damage and debris in a fence north of the farmstead. The tornado likely ended at or near a farmstead in far western Nuckolls County where some tree damage and outbuilding damage occurred. The estimated peak wind was 85 MPH.
June 2012Thunderstorm WindGuide Rock$75,000Thunderstorm wind gusts estmated at 60 mph occurred along with golf ball size hail. Very heavy rain was also occurring.
June 2002HailGuide Rock$50,000no account filed
July 1997HailGuide Rock$35,000no account filed
June 2017Thunderstorm WindGuide Rock$25,000Wind gusts estimated near 70 MPH were accompanied by dime size hail.
June 2012HailGuide Rock$25,000Estimated wind gusts of 60 mph occurred along with the golf ball size hail. The golf ball size hail was ongoing at the time of this report. Very heavy rainfall was also occurring.
July 2005HailGuide Rock$25,000no account filed
July 2004HailGuide Rock$25,000no account filed
June 1998HailGuide Rock$15,000no account filed
July 2019Thunderstorm WindGuide Rock$10,000Wind gusts estimated to be near 65 MPH resulted in tree damage in Guide Rock. Power outages were reported due to downed tree limbs.
October 2007FloodGuide Rock$10,000The Republican River south of Guide Rock topped its banks shortly after midnight on October 5 and remained in flood until around noon.
June 1998HailGuide Rock$5,000no account filed
April 2008HailGuide Rock$3,000no account filed
August 2025Thunderstorm WindGuide Rock-A wind gust of 64 MPH was measured by a Nebraska Mesonet station located three miles east-northeast of Guide Rock.
December 2021Thunderstorm WindGuide Rock-A wind gust of 59 MPH was measured by a mesonet station located three east-northeast of Guide Rock.
June 2019FloodGuide Rock-Overflow water from Pawnee Lake damaged a short section of railroad track. There was still a small amount of standing water at 3 pm.
July 2017Heavy RainGuide Rock-A storm total rainfall amount of 3.22 inches was measured.
July 2014Thunderstorm WindGuide Rock-Wind gusts were estimated to be near 60 MPH.
May 2011Thunderstorm WindGuide Rock-Wind gusts were estimated at 60 MPH.
July 2005Heavy RainGuide Rock-Three to three and a half inches of rain fell south of Guide Rock.
May 2002Tornado (F0)Guide Rock-Brief touchdown of a tornado reported by a storm chaser.
August 2023HailGuide Rock-no account filed
March 2019HailGuide Rock-no account filed
June 2019Thunderstorm WindGuide Rock-no account filed
May 2019HailGuide Rock-no account filed
October 2017HailGuide Rock-no account filed
May 2016HailGuide Rock-no account filed
April 2015HailGuide Rock-no account filed
May 2011HailGuide Rock-no account filed
June 2010HailGuide Rock-no account filed
June 2010HailGuide Rock-no account filed
June 2010HailGuide Rock-no account filed
June 2009HailGuide Rock-no account filed
April 2008HailGuide Rock-no account filed
August 2007HailGuide Rock-no account filed
April 2006HailGuide Rock-no account filed
July 2005HailGuide Rock-no account filed
July 2004HailGuide Rock-no account filed
April 2003HailGuide Rock-no account filed
May 2002HailGuide Rock-no account filed
August 2002HailGuide Rock-no account filed
April 2001Thunderstorm WindGuide Rock-no account filed
May 1996HailGuide Rock-no account filed
July 1994Thunderstorm WindGuide Rock-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Webster 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
Pawnee Village4.1 miles11
Amboy5.8 miles11
Lester Junction6.0 miles11
Cowles9.0 miles11
Red Cloud10.1 miles15
Rosemont14.8 miles11
Inavale16.9 miles15
Blue Hill18.9 miles11

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 Guide RockAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1553466The 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 829718. 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.