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Valparaiso, Nebraska

12 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1899 and the latest in 1982. It stands in Oak Creek Township. It lies in ZIP code area 68065. It stands on Bates Branch. The Survey maps it on the Valparaiso quadrangle. 595 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,312 feet above sea level.

Valparaiso within Saunders County

Population over time

2 figures

Valparaiso grew from 570 to 595 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
2010570
2020595+25 (+4%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 12 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

55 since 2007

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 55 fires within 5 miles of Valparaiso between 2007 and 2019, burning about 642 acres in total. None started naturally. 14 were 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 burning19
Arson/incendiarism14
Missing data/not specified/undetermined12
Equipment and vehicle use5
Power generation/transmission/distribution2
Fireworks1
Recreation and ceremony1
Smoking1

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 September 2019Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreNebraska Forest Servicenot named
1 September 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreNebraska Forest Servicenot named
8 August 2008Arson/incendiarismunder an acreNebraska Forest Servicenot named
7 July 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreNebraska Forest Servicenot named
7 July 2013Fireworks3.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
11 July 2011Equipment and vehicle use1.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
17 June 2018Debris and open burningunder an acreNebraska Forest Servicenot named
9 May 2010Debris and open burningunder an acreNebraska Forest Servicenot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Saunders County

Storms near this place

22 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Valparaiso in 22 storm reports between 1996 and 2026: 14 hail, 7 thunderstorm wind, 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
June 1997Thunderstorm WindValparaiso$70,000Nearly 200 trees and branches downed. Two cars smashed by falling trees. Power poles downed.
March 2026HailValparaiso-Public report of hail estimated at 1.00 inch in diameter.
May 2024HailValparaiso-The office received an mPING report of half dollar sized hail in Valparaiso, Nebraska.
May 2024Thunderstorm WindValparaiso-The office received a report of a roof blown off a shed. Several large trees were also blown down in the area.
July 2024Flash FloodValparaiso-The North Oak Creek at the Valparaiso river gauge (VLPN1) experienced flood stage briefly as a result from flash flooding caused by training thunderstorms. The creek crested at 240 am CST on the 2nd at a height of 22.70 feet.
June 2022HailValparaiso-Trained spotter reported 1.75 inch hail.
June 2022HailValparaiso-Public reported 1 inch hail.
June 2022Thunderstorm WindValparaiso-Public reported tree limbs down from wind gust accompanied by small hail.
July 2020Thunderstorm WindValparaiso-Public reported a pole barn flipped over and crop damage.
May 2010HailValparaiso-Most of it was smaller but a few stones up to one inch in diameter fell east through northeast of Valparaiso.
May 2006Thunderstorm WindValparaiso-Estimated at 70 mph by a trained spotter.
September 2006HailValparaiso-The storm also knocked down a few small limbs.
June 2002Thunderstorm WindValparaiso-Thunderstorm wind gusts downed trees causing power outages north of Valparaiso.
June 2014HailValparaiso-no account filed
April 2013HailValparaiso-no account filed
June 2008HailValparaiso-no account filed
April 2006HailValparaiso-no account filed
September 2006HailValparaiso-no account filed
April 2005HailValparaiso-no account filed
June 2004HailValparaiso-no account filed
June 1996Thunderstorm WindValparaiso-no account filed
June 1996HailValparaiso-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Saunders 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
Touhy3.6 miles11
Weston9.1 miles11
Ceresco10.0 miles11
Swedeburg11.6 miles12
Malmo14.0 miles11
Wahoo14.4 miles12
Prague15.8 miles11
Ithaca16.5 miles12

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 ValparaisoAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1860635The 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 834348. 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.