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Sarita, Texas

8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1928 and the latest in 1989. It stands in the Sarita census division. It lies in ZIP code area 78385. The Survey maps it on the Sarita quadrangle. 205 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 36 feet above sea level.

Research this city

Sarita within Kenedy County

Population over time

2 figures

Sarita fell from 238 to 205 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
2010238
2020205-33 (-14%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

8 surveys

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

51 since 2011

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 51 fires within 5 miles of Sarita between 2011 and 2020, burning about 1,846 acres in total. None 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
Debris and open burning26
Missing data/not specified/undetermined11
Smoking7
Power generation/transmission/distribution2
Equipment and vehicle use2
Railroad operations and maintenance2
Misuse of fire by a minor1

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
30 September 2019Smoking1.0 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceCHANDLER ROAD FIRE
26 September 2019Railroad operations and maintenance2.0 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceSARITA GRASS FIRE
10 September 2011Missing data/not specified/undetermined10 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceGARCIA STREET FIRE
9 August 2012Smoking1.0 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceEXXON GATE GRASS FIRE
5 August 2019Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresTexas A & M Forest ServicePAISTLE GATE FIRE
3 August 2015Equipment and vehicle use1.0 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceREST AREA GRASS FIRE
13 August 2015Debris and open burning1.0 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceKENEDY COUNTY CONTROL BURN
14 July 2011Smoking5.0 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceUS 77 KENEDY/KLEBERG FIRE

Every fire recorded in Kenedy County

Storms near this place

19 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Sarita in 19 storm reports between 1997 and 2025: 9 hail, 7 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado, 1 heavy rain. 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
March 1999Thunderstorm WindSarita$1,000Extensive tree damage.
September 1997Thunderstorm WindSarita$500no account filed
November 2025HailSarita-Law enforcement reported golf ball sized hail in Sarita, TX.
March 2012Thunderstorm WindSarita-The Meteorologist-in-Charge of the NWS office in Brownsville witnessed a downburst/microburst about one mile east of U.S. Highway 77 approximately 10 miles south of Sarita. The microburst produced a tremendous amount of dust; winds were estimated the winds to be near 60 mph.
April 2012Tornado (EF0)Sarita-A tornado was reported on the Kenedy Ranch, approximately 3 miles south of Rivera (Kleberg County). This storm would later produce a damaging tornado near Kingsville. The National Weather Service Office in Corpus Christi relayed the report to from the general public.
September 2009Heavy RainSarita-A CO-OP observer reported 2.41 inches of rain fell during a thunderstorm which moved through the Sarita area during the early afternoon Sunday September 11th.
October 2009Thunderstorm WindSarita-A Texas Coastal and Ocean Observing Network site at Baffin Bay, just a few miles northeast of Kenedy County, recorded wind gusts up to 65 mile per hour when line of strong to severe thunderstorms rapidly developed in western Kenedy County and raced east. Wind gusts at or above 60 mph continued until 1236 PM. Note: Wind gust value is used as a proxy to estimated value on the nearby promontory of northeast Kenedy County.
May 2006Tornado (F0)Sarita-Tornado was reported by the U.S. Border Patrol near Armstrong. The tornado touched down over open ranch land and produced no damage.
May 2006HailSarita-Large hail was reported by a CO-OP observer.
April 2004HailSarita-Large hail was reported by the general public.
May 2001Thunderstorm WindSarita-Thunderstorm wind gust of 60 mph was reported by a NWS cooperative observer east of Sarita.
September 2001Thunderstorm WindSarita-A wind gust of 56 knots (65 mph) was estimated by Border Patrol officials located at the Border Patrol checkpoint on U.S. Highway 77, 10 miles south of Sarita.
May 2000Thunderstorm WindSarita-Border patrol checkpoint located at Sarita estimated 75 mph winds associated with a squall line or a line echo wave pattern thunderstorm complex.
May 2005HailSarita-no account filed
May 2005HailSarita-no account filed
May 2005HailSarita-no account filed
April 2003HailSarita-no account filed
May 1999HailSarita-no account filed
May 1999HailSarita-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Kenedy 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
La Parra Landing8.2 miles12
Turcotte14.8 miles8
Armstrong20.5 miles11
Yarborough21.9 miles11
Norias29.8 miles11
Julian30.7 miles11
Rudolph37.0 miles13

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 SaritaAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q975090The 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 1346706. 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.