Monte Alto, Texas
9 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1953 and the latest in 1992. It stands in the Edcouch-Elsa census division. It lies in ZIP code area 78538. The Survey maps it on the Edcouch quadrangle. 1,930 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 52 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresMonte Alto grew from 1,924 to 1,930 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 | 1,924 | |
| 2020 | 1,930 | +6 (+0%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
6 surveys from 9 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.
- 1953 USGS Brownsville quadrangle1:250000
- 1956 USGS Brownsville quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1956 USGS Port Isabel quadrangle1:250000
- 1957 USGS Edcouch quadrangle1:24000, 3 printings
- 1962 USGS Brownsville quadrangle1:250000
- 1992 USGS Harlingen quadrangle1:100000
Fires near this place
27 since 1999Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 27 fires within 5 miles of Monte Alto between 1999 and 2010, burning about 143 acres in total. None started naturally. 2 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/undetermined | 15 |
| Debris and open burning | 9 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 2 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 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 July 2009 | Debris and open burning | 5.0 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | CANAL BANK |
| 2 June 2009 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | 2812 AND VALVERDE |
| 31 May 1999 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge | NOSEDIVE |
| 15 May 2005 | Arson/incendiarism | 5.0 acres | South Texas Refuge Complex | CEMETARY |
| 30 April 2006 | Debris and open burning | 2.0 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | not named |
| 21 April 2009 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2.0 acres | Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge | OTHA N/O 2 |
| 12 April 2006 | Debris and open burning | 10 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | not named |
| 3 March 2009 | Debris and open burning | 5.0 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | GRASS FIRE |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
6 since 2012Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Monte Alto in 6 storm reports between 2012 and 2025: 3 thunderstorm wind, 2 hail, 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 2019 | Thunderstorm Wind | Monte Alto | $100,000 | A severe thunderstorm produced sporadic straight line wind damage|from Monte alto to portions of north Elsa during the evening of|June 24th. Storm motion was from northeast to southwest out of western Willacy County, and several large tree limbs were snapped, and a few trees were uprooted, on the east side of Monte Alto. Winds also caused a free standing metal tower to collapse in Monte Alto. As the storm moved southwestward, large swaths of sugar cane were|noticeably bent towards the ground. Farther west, two poorly |constructed mobile homes were completely destroyed and another was|rolled on its side in a colonia about 2 miles west of Monte Alto. Near Elsa, just off of Monte Cristo Road, over a dozen wooden power poles were snapped across N. Mile Five and One-Half Road. Some metal sheet roofing was torn from a nearby home, and a storage shed had considerable damage to walls and roofing. Based on the construction quality of the buildings and the transmission tower, and the type of trees damaged, peak wind speeds were estimated at 65 to 75 mph. |
| August 2020 | Flash Flood | Monte Alto | $20,000 | Hidalgo County Emergency Manager reported flooding into homes in Monte Alto as well as in homes near the intersection of FM2812 and FM493 due to heavy rain. |
| June 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Monte Alto | $1,000 | Hidalgo County Fire Marshal reported at least two large trees blown down, including on the road along FM 2825 near the intersections of Sunshine and Val Verde Road. |
| May 2019 | Hail | Monte Alto | - | Nickel-sized hail was reported via Facebook in the El Monte Colonia near Monte Alto during the pre-dawn hours of May 14, 2019. |
| May 2015 | Thunderstorm Wind | Monte Alto | - | Public reported 60 acres of corn leveled by straight line winds at the corner of FM 493 and FM 2812. |
| October 2012 | Hail | Monte Alto | - | A supercell thunderstorm dropped hail the size of golfballs across a several mile swath of rural eastern Hidalgo County. The initial reports from the public indicated golf ball sized hail fell in Monte Alto at 615 pm CDT; radar reconcilation suggested the hail core drifted southward from Monte Alto for about 2.5 miles (north of Edcouch/Elsa) between 610 PM and 625 PM. |
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 | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jessups Colonia | 0.2 miles | 9 | |
| El Monte Colonia | 3.1 miles | 9 | |
| George Lookingbill Number 2 Colonia | 3.2 miles | 9 | |
| George Lookingbill Number 1 Colonia | 3.2 miles | 9 | |
| Bar Number 3 Colonia | 3.8 miles | 9 | |
| Engleman Gardens | 3.8 miles | 10 | |
| Engleman Estates Colonia | 3.9 miles | 10 | |
| Bernal Heights Number 2 Colonia | 3.9 miles | 9 |
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 Monte Alto | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q978622 | 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 1341816. 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.





