Nickerson, Nebraska
8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1955 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Nickerson Township. It lies in ZIP code area 68044. It stands on Maple Creek. The Survey maps it on the Nickerson quadrangle. 312 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,201 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresNickerson fell from 369 to 312 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 | 369 | |
| 2020 | 312 | -57 (-15%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
5 surveys from 8 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.
- 1955 USGS Fremont quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1957 USGS Fremont quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Fremont quadrangle1:250000
- 1966 USGS Nickerson quadrangle1:24000
- 1986 USGS Blair quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
25 since 2009Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 25 fires within 5 miles of Nickerson between 2009 and 2020, burning about 59 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 | 15 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 6 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 3 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 September 2020 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 8 June 2017 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 30 June 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 25 June 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 5 May 2017 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 30 April 2018 | Recreation and ceremony | 35 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 26 April 2018 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 21 April 2019 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
32 since 1996Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Nickerson in 32 storm reports between 1996 and 2025: 14 hail, 9 thunderstorm wind, 8 flood, 1 funnel cloud. 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 2010 | Flood | Nickerson | $100,000 | Several periods of heavy rain fell across the Maple Creek basin from June 8th through the 14th which produced a prolonged period of flooding along Maple Creek near and northwest of Nickerson. The high water backed up along a railroad track and closed Highway 91 leading into Nickerson for a while. Farmland and county roads near the creek were flooded causing damage to both. Maple Creek near Nickerson crested around 15.5 feet during the early morning of June 12th and was at or above its 10 foot flood stage from the afternoon of June 10th through late in the evening on the 14th. |
| June 2014 | Flood | Nickerson | $10,000 | Heavy rain caused Maple Creek to flood around and west of Nickerson. The creek at Nickerson reached a crest a little over 15 feet during the afternoon of June 21, flood stage is 11.5 feet. The flooding crossed a few county roads in the area and also flooded farmland near the creek. |
| May 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Nickerson | - | Personal weather station wind gust measured at 59 mph. |
| April 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Nickerson | - | Personal weather station measured gust of 63 mph. |
| April 2025 | Hail | Nickerson | - | Public report of hail estimated up to baseball size, 2.75 in diameter. Report received via mPING. |
| April 2025 | Hail | Nickerson | - | Fire department report of hail estimated up to 1.75 in diameter. |
| April 2025 | Hail | Nickerson | - | Public report of hail estimated up to 1 in diameter. |
| May 2024 | Thunderstorm Wind | Nickerson | - | A 67 miles per hour wind gust was measured on a personal weather station. |
| July 2023 | Hail | Nickerson | - | Public reported 1.75-inch hail. |
| July 2023 | Hail | Nickerson | - | Public reported 2-inch hail. |
| July 2023 | Hail | Nickerson | - | Public reported 1-inch hail via mPING. |
| March 2019 | Flood | Nickerson | - | Water from Maple Creek is beginning to cross the bridge at Nickerson Road. |
| March 2019 | Flood | Nickerson | - | Water is encroaching the bridge guards along Maple Creek. |
| March 2019 | Flood | Nickerson | - | Parts of Nickerson are under water due to overflow from Maple Creek. |
| June 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Nickerson | - | Trees and power lines were blown down. |
| June 2016 | Flood | Nickerson | - | Widespread low-land flooding was observed along the channel of the creek. Water flowed over Nickerson Road just north of town, and did impact the U.S. Highway 275 and 77 bridge but did not close the highways. |
| September 2016 | Flood | Nickerson | - | Heavy rainfall caused the Maple Creek to go into moderate flooding. This created significant low-land flooding of agricultural areas along both bands of the creek, also county roads north of Nickerson, and flooded the US Highway 275 bridge closing the highway. The creek crested at 14.38 before quickly falling on the 17th. |
| June 2015 | Flood | Nickerson | - | Minor flooding was observed along the Maple Creek near Nickerson. The flooding was confined to low-lined agricultural areas along the river. |
| June 2013 | Thunderstorm Wind | Nickerson | - | A wind gust to around 60 mph was reported. This resulted in scattered tree damage across town. |
| June 2011 | Funnel Cloud | Nickerson | - | A funnel was caught on video from a storm chaser and also seen by at least one storm spotter. The funnel could have possibly touched down briefly, but no damage was reported. |
| August 2009 | Hail | Nickerson | - | The hail was accompanied by thunderstorm winds that downed some large tree limbs in the area. |
| August 2009 | Thunderstorm Wind | Nickerson | - | Thunderstorm winds estimated at around 60 mph downed 4 inch diameter tree limbs north of Nickerson. The winds were accompanied by golf ball-size hail. |
| July 2003 | Thunderstorm Wind | Nickerson | - | Thunderstorm winds estimated at over 60 mph blew the window out of a trailer house in Nickerson. |
| May 2001 | Hail | Nickerson | - | This storm also produced 2 1/2 inches of rain in an hour. |
| May 2001 | Thunderstorm Wind | Nickerson | - | Estimated by a tv meteorologist. |
| July 2001 | Hail | Nickerson | - | Hail as large as golfball size fell to the northeast of Fremont. The hail caused a significant amount of crop damage according to a local Co-op manager. |
| September 2019 | Hail | Nickerson | - | no account filed |
| April 2016 | Hail | Nickerson | - | no account filed |
| April 2005 | Hail | Nickerson | - | no account filed |
| July 2005 | Hail | Nickerson | - | no account filed |
| July 2001 | Hail | Nickerson | - | no account filed |
| August 1996 | Thunderstorm Wind | Nickerson | - | 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.
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 Nickerson | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q966297 | 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 831622. 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.




