Oak, Nebraska
12 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1898 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Elk precinct. It lies in ZIP code area 68964. It stands on Oak Creek. The Survey maps it on the Oak quadrangle. 54 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,588 feet above sea level.
On record in Oak
Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.
On the National Register 1 record
- Stewart Bridgelisted 1992
Population over time
2 figuresOak fell from 66 to 54 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 | 66 | |
| 2020 | 54 | -12 (-18%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
6 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.
- 1898 USGS Hebron quadrangle1:125000, 2 printings
- 1955 USGS Lincoln quadrangle1:250000, 5 printings
- 1957 USGS Lincoln quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Lincoln quadrangle1:250000
- 1960 USGS Oak quadrangle1:24000
- 1985 USGS Fairbury quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
4 since 2009Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 4 fires within 5 miles of Oak between 2009 and 2018, burning about 9 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 | 2 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 2 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 September 2009 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 15 March 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 7.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 20 February 2009 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 28 November 2018 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
20 since 1995Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Oak in 20 storm reports between 1995 and 2024: 10 hail, 7 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado, 1 flash flood. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2020 | Tornado (EF0) | Oak | $15,000 | A landspout tornado was confirmed via several eyewitness reports and a damage survey in northern Nuckolls County. This tornado formed along a weak frontal boundary and exhibited the classic landspout characteristics of a long, translucent condensation/dust funnel. The landspout moved southwest along the boundary for over 3 miles. The main damage along its path was the overturning of 11 empty coal railroad cars. Otherwise, damage was minimal. The maximum wind speed was estimated to be 80 MPH. |
| March 2019 | Hail | Oak | $15,000 | no account filed |
| September 2018 | Flash Flood | Oak | $10,000 | In addition to the rain that had fallen across the area on the 1st, radar estimation and measured amounts showed an additional 3 to 5 inches of rain falling across portions of the warned area the night of the 2nd. Much of this rain fell over a short period of time, resulting in water running over some area roads, including portions of Highway 4 between Carleton and Davenport. |
| July 1995 | Hail | Oak | $5,000 | no account filed |
| August 2007 | Thunderstorm Wind | Oak | $2,000 | no account filed |
| July 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | Oak | - | Wind gusts estimated to be near 70 MPH resulted in a damaged grain bin. |
| July 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | Oak | - | A wind gust of 59 MPH was recorded by a mesonet station located 1 mile northeast of Oak. |
| August 2019 | Thunderstorm Wind | Oak | - | Wind gusts estimated to be near 70 MPH resulted in widespread tree damage in Oak. |
| June 2018 | Thunderstorm Wind | Oak | - | Three inch diameter healthy tree limbs were down on Highway 4. |
| July 2011 | Thunderstorm Wind | Oak | - | Wind gusts were estimated at 60 MPH. |
| July 2011 | Hail | Oak | - | Golf ball size hail fell for approximately 30 minutes. Crop damage was reported from Oak to Ruskin along an approximately 4 mile wide path. |
| May 2004 | Tornado (F0) | Oak | - | Storm spotters reported a brief tornado southwest of Oak. |
| May 2024 | Hail | Oak | - | no account filed |
| August 2021 | Hail | Oak | - | no account filed |
| September 2015 | Hail | Oak | - | no account filed |
| July 2011 | Hail | Oak | - | no account filed |
| June 2007 | Hail | Oak | - | no account filed |
| June 2004 | Thunderstorm Wind | Oak | - | no account filed |
| April 2002 | Hail | Oak | - | no account filed |
| April 2001 | Hail | Oak | - | 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 Oak | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1290758 | 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 831792. 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.





