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Alma, Texas

11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1985. It stands in the Ennis census division. It lies in ZIP code area 75119. The Survey maps it on the Ennis East quadrangle. 373 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 474 feet above sea level.

Alma within Ellis County

Population over time

2 figures

Alma grew from 331 to 373 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
2010331
2020373+42 (+13%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

5 surveys from 11 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

77 since 2006

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 77 fires within 5 miles of Alma between 2006 and 2020, burning about 1,749 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 4 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined30
Debris and open burning25
Equipment and vehicle use13
Railroad operations and maintenance4
Arson/incendiarism4
Natural1

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
7 September 2013Arson/incendiarismunder an acreTexas A & M Forest ServiceC13-11807
5 September 2011Missing data/not specified/undetermined375 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceSPENCE ROAD FIRE
4 September 2011Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreTexas A & M Forest Service1111976
28 September 2016Debris and open burning16 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceVALLEY VIEW
26 September 2009Debris and open burning2.0 acresTexas A & M Forest Service1401 MCKINNEY FIRE
25 September 2015Equipment and vehicle use2.0 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceGRASS FIRE
25 September 2014Arson/incendiarism10 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceC14-12765
25 September 2008Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreTexas A & M Forest Servicenot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Ellis County

Storms near this place

13 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Alma in 13 storm reports between 1993 and 2024: 8 hail, 3 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado. 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
May 2010Thunderstorm WindAlma$15,000Two semi-trucks were blown off of Interstate 45 near Alma by thunderstorm outflow winds. The occupants of these trucks were not injured. Winds also damaged some trees within the community of Alma.
March 2023HailAlma$12,000no account filed
June 2023HailAlma$10,000Three inch diameter hail was measured one mile south of Alma.
May 2019Thunderstorm WindAlma$10,000Broadcast media reported a large truck flipped into the median in the city of Alma, TX.
April 1995Thunderstorm WindAlma$10,000Trees were blown down and outbuildings were destroyed by high winds.
May 2010Tornado (EF0)Alma$5,000Ellis County Emergency Management reported a brief tornado touchdown approximately 2 miles northeast of Alma. This tornado damaged an abandoned barn and uprooted and twisted a few trees. The abandoned barn eventually collapsed due to the structural damage caused by the tornado. This damage is consistent with a tornado producing wind speeds of 80 mph, so it has been rated EF-0.
May 1993Tornado (F1)Alma$5,000A tornado damaged a mobile home and blew a storage building across Interstate 45. A woman on a bus reportedly saw two small tornadoes in the area at the same time, the other tornado probably being the Navarro County one at 2 W Rice.
June 2023HailAlma$5,000no account filed
May 2012HailAlma$3,000Golf ball sized hail fell at the intersection of Highway 287 and Interstate 45.
May 2024HailAlma-Report from mPING: Quarter (1.00 in.).
May 2024HailAlma-Report from mPING: Quarter (1.00 in.).
March 2022HailAlma-A trained spotter reported half dollar sized hail along Interstate 45 near the Buc-ees in Ennis, TX.
May 1993HailAlma-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Ellis 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
Oak Grove2.7 miles11
Ensign3.9 miles11
Creechville4.0 miles11
Sonoma5.1 miles11
Ennis5.2 miles11
Onion Creek5.8 miles9
Telico6.2 miles11
Garrett7.9 miles11

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 AlmaAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q972854The 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 1377926. 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.