Kennard, Nebraska
14 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1893 and the latest in 1982. It stands in Township 2. It lies in ZIP code area 68034. It stands on East Fork Big Papillion Creek. The Survey maps it on the Kennard quadrangle. 381 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,148 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresKennard grew from 361 to 381 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 | 361 | |
| 2020 | 381 | +20 (+6%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
7 surveys from 14 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.
- 1893 USGS Fremont quadrangle1:125000
- 1896 USGS Fremont quadrangle1:125000, 5 printings
- 1955 USGS Fremont quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1957 USGS Fremont quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Fremont quadrangle1:250000
- 1968 USGS Kennard quadrangle1:24000
- 1982 USGS Fremont quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
10 since 2008Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 10 fires within 5 miles of Kennard between 2008 and 2020, burning about 12 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 |
|---|---|
| Debris and open burning | 10 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 August 2020 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 4 July 2008 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 9 April 2014 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 26 April 2018 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 26 April 2014 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 16 April 2014 | Debris and open burning | 8.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 12 April 2018 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 12 April 2014 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
28 since 1996Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Kennard in 28 storm reports between 1996 and 2026: 13 hail, 10 thunderstorm wind, 2 flash flood, 1 lightning. 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 2014 | Flash Flood | Kennard | $50,000 | Heavy rainfall from a significant supercell caused rural flash flooding that also allowed for flooding of highway 31 near highway 30. |
| April 1998 | Lightning | Kennard | $15,000 | Lightning struck a windmill near a home and followed the wiring into a nearby house, sparking a fire. Damage was minor. |
| April 2026 | Hail | Kennard | - | Law enforcement report of hail estimated up to 1.75 inch in diameter near Kennard, NE. |
| April 2025 | Hail | Kennard | - | Public report of hail estimated up to 2.75 in diameter. Delayed report with the time estimated from radar. |
| April 2025 | Hail | Kennard | - | Trained spotter report of hail measured up to 1.75 in diameter. |
| June 2024 | Thunderstorm Wind | Kennard | - | A 59 miles per hour wind gust was measured by a Union Pacific weather station. |
| July 2023 | Thunderstorm Wind | Kennard | - | A personal weather station measured a peak wind gust of 60 mph. |
| August 2021 | Thunderstorm Wind | Kennard | - | Mesonet site measured a peak wind gust of 60 mph. |
| June 2014 | Thunderstorm Wind | Kennard | - | Measured at a personal weather station along highway 133 and county road 32. |
| June 2014 | Hail | Kennard | - | A spotter reported golf ball to tennis ball size hail at the intersection of County Road 34 and Highway 133. |
| July 2013 | Hail | Kennard | - | The hail was reported at the Blair Municipal Airport. |
| September 2013 | Thunderstorm Wind | Kennard | - | Thunderstorm winds estimated at around 75 mph blew an empty grain bin across a road and also destroyed at least one farm outbuilding in the region. |
| June 2011 | Tornado (EF1) | Kennard | - | A tornado started 2 1/2 miles west-southwest of Kennard and moved north-northeast. The tornado dented in silos, snapped trees, and removed roofing off sheds. The tornado briefly reached EF1 strength west of Blair where a shed was severely damaged and trees were uprooted. The tornado ended about 2 1/2 miles west of Blair on Highway 91. |
| June 2010 | Heavy Rain | Kennard | - | Heavy rain caused the Big Papillion Creek to rise to bank-full during the morning hours of June 5th. Six hour rainfall on automated gauges on the creek were as much as 4.25 inches in southern Washington county around the Kennard area to around 2.5 inches at gauges in north central Douglas county near and east of Bennington. |
| September 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Kennard | - | Thunderstorm winds estimated at 70 mph destroyed a barn west of Kennard and caused a large tree limb to fall on the Kennard auditorium causing some damage to the front of the building. |
| September 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Kennard | - | Thunderstorm winds estimated at 60 to 70 mph destroyed a barn near Highway 30 west of Kennard. |
| July 2004 | Thunderstorm Wind | Kennard | - | Thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at 60 mph broke large tree branches in town. |
| June 2014 | Hail | Kennard | - | no account filed |
| June 2014 | Thunderstorm Wind | Kennard | - | no account filed |
| June 2014 | Thunderstorm Wind | Kennard | - | no account filed |
| June 2010 | Hail | Kennard | - | no account filed |
| August 2007 | Hail | Kennard | - | no account filed |
| May 2007 | Hail | Kennard | - | no account filed |
| April 2005 | Hail | Kennard | - | no account filed |
| May 2005 | Hail | Kennard | - | no account filed |
| August 2005 | Hail | Kennard | - | no account filed |
| June 1999 | Hail | Kennard | - | no account filed |
| June 1996 | Flash Flood | Kennard | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Washington | 5.2 miles | 14 | |
| Orum | 6.2 miles | 8 | |
| Blair | 6.4 miles | 9 | |
| De Soto | 7.9 miles | 15 | |
| Arlington | 8.0 miles | 15 | |
| Fort Calhoun | 9.5 miles | 15 | |
| Nashville | 11.9 miles | 13 | |
| Telbasta | 12.2 miles | 8 |
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 Kennard | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2181665 | 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 830471. 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.






