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.
Population over time
2 figuresValparaiso 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.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 570 | |
| 2020 | 595 | +25 (+4%) |
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.
- 1899 USGS Wahoo quadrangle1:125000, 3 printings
- 1955 USGS Fremont quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1957 USGS Fremont quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Fremont quadrangle1:250000
- 1969 USGS Valparaiso quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1982 USGS Fremont quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
55 since 2007Regional 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 burning | 19 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 14 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 12 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 5 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 2 |
| Fireworks | 1 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 1 |
| Smoking | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 September 2019 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 1 September 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 8 August 2008 | Arson/incendiarism | under an acre | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 7 July 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 7 July 2013 | Fireworks | 3.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 11 July 2011 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 17 June 2018 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 9 May 2010 | 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
22 since 1996Regional 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 1997 | Thunderstorm Wind | Valparaiso | $70,000 | Nearly 200 trees and branches downed. Two cars smashed by falling trees. Power poles downed. |
| March 2026 | Hail | Valparaiso | - | Public report of hail estimated at 1.00 inch in diameter. |
| May 2024 | Hail | Valparaiso | - | The office received an mPING report of half dollar sized hail in Valparaiso, Nebraska. |
| May 2024 | Thunderstorm Wind | Valparaiso | - | The office received a report of a roof blown off a shed. Several large trees were also blown down in the area. |
| July 2024 | Flash Flood | Valparaiso | - | 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 2022 | Hail | Valparaiso | - | Trained spotter reported 1.75 inch hail. |
| June 2022 | Hail | Valparaiso | - | Public reported 1 inch hail. |
| June 2022 | Thunderstorm Wind | Valparaiso | - | Public reported tree limbs down from wind gust accompanied by small hail. |
| July 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | Valparaiso | - | Public reported a pole barn flipped over and crop damage. |
| May 2010 | Hail | Valparaiso | - | Most of it was smaller but a few stones up to one inch in diameter fell east through northeast of Valparaiso. |
| May 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Valparaiso | - | Estimated at 70 mph by a trained spotter. |
| September 2006 | Hail | Valparaiso | - | The storm also knocked down a few small limbs. |
| June 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Valparaiso | - | Thunderstorm wind gusts downed trees causing power outages north of Valparaiso. |
| June 2014 | Hail | Valparaiso | - | no account filed |
| April 2013 | Hail | Valparaiso | - | no account filed |
| June 2008 | Hail | Valparaiso | - | no account filed |
| April 2006 | Hail | Valparaiso | - | no account filed |
| September 2006 | Hail | Valparaiso | - | no account filed |
| April 2005 | Hail | Valparaiso | - | no account filed |
| June 2004 | Hail | Valparaiso | - | no account filed |
| June 1996 | Thunderstorm Wind | Valparaiso | - | no account filed |
| June 1996 | Hail | Valparaiso | - | 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 Valparaiso | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1860635 | 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 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.





