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Chelsea, South Dakota

8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1899 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Union Township. It lies in ZIP code area 57465. It stands on Preachers Run. The Survey maps it on the Chelsea quadrangle. 19 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,352 feet above sea level.

Chelsea within Faulk County

Population over time

2 figures

Chelsea fell from 27 to 19 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
201027
202019-8 (-30%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

5 surveys from 8 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

10 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 10 fires within 5 miles of Chelsea between 1999 and 2017, burning about 143 acres in total. 3 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
Equipment and vehicle use3
Natural3
Missing data/not specified/undetermined2
Debris and open burning2

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
22 September 2017Missing data/not specified/undetermined3.0 acresSouth Dakota Wildland Fire SuppressionD HASELHORST FIRE 1
14 September 2017Natural10 acresSouth Dakota Wildland Fire SuppressionD HASELHORST FIRE 2
13 September 2017Natural20 acresSouth Dakota Wildland Fire SuppressionD HASELHORST FIRE 3
15 August 2011Missing data/not specified/undetermined2.0 acresSouth Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression12562
12 August 2006Natural13 acresSand Lake National Wildlife RefugeSOUTH SCATTERWOOD
21 July 2007Equipment and vehicle use50 acresSouth Dakota Wildland Fire Suppressionnot named
21 July 2007Equipment and vehicle use10 acresSouth Dakota Wildland Fire Suppressionnot named
20 July 2008Equipment and vehicle use1.0 acresSouth Dakota Wildland Fire Suppressionnot named

Every fire recorded in Faulk County

Storms near this place

31 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Chelsea in 31 storm reports between 1998 and 2025: 18 hail, 11 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado, 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
June 2025Thunderstorm WindChelsea-Caller states that some shingles were blown from the roof.
July 2025Thunderstorm WindChelsea-Thunderstorm winds estimated at 60 mph and large hail resulted in stripped siding and damage to surrounding crops.
May 2024Funnel CloudChelsea-A trained spotter observed a funnel cloud west of Warner.
August 2022Thunderstorm WindChelsea-An out building was blown through a windbreak and across the road, and another building had its north doors blown out by estimated 80 mph winds.
July 2020Thunderstorm WindChelsea-Estimated seventy mph winds scattered several chemical bulk containers about the yard.
June 2018Thunderstorm WindChelsea-An estimated eighty mph wind from a thunderstorm brought down a tree. Before the rain began, blowing dust occurred with the visibility down to an eighth of a mile.
July 2015HailChelsea-A large area of crops were damaged from golf ball size hail.
July 2015Thunderstorm WindChelsea-Sixty mph winds were estimated.
August 2012Thunderstorm WindChelsea-A trained spotter estimated wind gusts of sixty mph.
August 2012Thunderstorm WindChelsea-A trained spotter reported large tree branches down due to an estimated seventy mph winds.
May 2010Thunderstorm WindChelsea-Seventy mph winds were estimated south of Chelsea.
July 1999Tornado (F1)Chelsea-The tornado snapped large branches off a live oak and drove them into the ground. The tornado knocked down approximately 5 headstones in a small cemetery, and took a roof off a small outbuilding. It destroyed an empty grain bin, moved a grain auger 50 feet, took off several large doors on a machine shed. The tornado also knocked down or snapped off numerous large trees in shelter belts and destroyed a barn and several outbuildings just north of Chelsea.
July 1999HailChelsea-Baseball sized hail broke the windshield on a pickup truck.
June 2025HailChelsea-no account filed
June 2025HailChelsea-no account filed
July 2025HailChelsea-no account filed
August 2022HailChelsea-no account filed
July 2020Thunderstorm WindChelsea-no account filed
July 2020HailChelsea-no account filed
July 2020HailChelsea-no account filed
July 2015HailChelsea-no account filed
May 2010HailChelsea-no account filed
August 2007HailChelsea-no account filed
April 2007HailChelsea-no account filed
August 2007HailChelsea-no account filed
June 2005HailChelsea-no account filed
June 2005HailChelsea-no account filed
May 2004HailChelsea-no account filed
July 2004HailChelsea-no account filed
June 2003HailChelsea-no account filed
July 1998Thunderstorm WindChelsea-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Faulk 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
Devoe9.1 miles8
Cresbard11.1 miles8
Evergreen Colony16.5 miles8
Miranda18.1 miles8
Zell18.8 miles8
Rockham18.8 miles8
Wecota20.0 miles8
Faulkton22.4 miles8

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 ChelseaAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2296070The 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 1254339. 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.