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Spade, Texas

9 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1985. It stands in the Littlefield census division. It lies in ZIP code area 79369. The Survey maps it on the Spade quadrangle. 71 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 3,517 feet above sea level.

Spade within Lamb County

Population over time

2 figures

Spade fell from 73 to 71 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
201073
202071-2 (-3%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

7 surveys from 9 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

5 since 2007

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 5 fires within 5 miles of Spade between 2007 and 2014, burning about 371 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
Equipment and vehicle use3
Debris and open burning1
Missing data/not specified/undetermined1

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
5 March 2010Equipment and vehicle use100 acresTexas A & M Forest Service1003051
11 March 2014Equipment and vehicle use120 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceGRASS14-6
10 March 2014Equipment and vehicle use150 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceGRASS14-5
1 March 2014Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreTexas A & M Forest Service14-0301-01
5 November 2007Debris and open burning1.0 acresTexas A & M Forest Servicenot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Lamb County

Storms near this place

21 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Spade in 21 storm reports between 1993 and 2025: 13 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
September 2006Thunderstorm WindSpade$75,000An irrigation center pivot was destroyed by severe thunderstorm winds just northwest of Spade.
April 2012Thunderstorm WindSpade$4,000A meteorologist reported one power pole snapped and two others bent about five miles south of Spade.
June 2000Thunderstorm WindSpade$2,000Strong thunderstorm wind snapped several power poles.
April 2025HailSpade-A trained spotter reported golf ball size hail covering Farm to Market Road 54 west of Spade.
June 2025Flash FloodSpade-An intense and long-lived supercell thunderstorm slowly tracked to the east across portions of Hockley, Lamb, Hale, Lubbock, and Crosby Counties. In addition to producing very large hail and numerous tornadoes, it also created very heavy rainfall which led to flash flooding across a large area of the South Plains. Several reports were received from storm chasers across Hockley, Lamb, and Hale Counties of water over many roadways. Numerous reports from Lubbock County and area web cams showed water flowing over city streets as deep as three feet in some areas.
November 2024Thunderstorm WindSpade-A Texas Tech University West Texas mesonet site near Anton measured severe wind gusts from 0802 CST through 0807 CST. A peak wind gust of 68 mph was measured at 0802 CST.
October 2023HailSpade-A report was received of quarter size hail north of Spade along Farm to Market Road 168.
July 2016HailSpade-Broadcast media relayed a photo of hail estimated to be the size of at least golf balls near Spade. No damage information was available. At one point, reliable multi-radar hail algorithms estimated that hail approached tennis ball size in southeast Lamb County.
June 2015Thunderstorm WindSpade-Estimated by a HAM radio spotter. Multiple gustnadoes were also observed.
August 2011HailSpade-Local broadcast media relayed a public report of penny size hail that covered the ground in Spade. Additionally, there were winds estimated to 50 mph as well as one inch of rainfall. The hail extensively damaged crops in the area.
June 2008Thunderstorm WindSpade-Damaging thunderstorm winds downed a number of large tree limbs in Spade around 20:20 CST. The public estimated wind gusts in excess of 60 mph south of Spade at 20:31.
May 2007HailSpade-The public reported golf ball size hail just north of Spade.
May 1993HailSpade-The public reported dime-size hail in eastern Lamb County. Minor crop damage resulted.
June 2005HailSpade-no account filed
June 2003HailSpade-no account filed
October 2003HailSpade-no account filed
May 2001HailSpade-no account filed
July 2001HailSpade-no account filed
June 1997Thunderstorm WindSpade-no account filed
June 1994HailSpade-no account filed
May 1993HailSpade-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Lamb 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
Bainer6.4 miles9
Hart Camp6.9 miles9
Corry7.5 miles9
Fieldton8.6 miles9
Littlefield9.1 miles8
Cofferville10.8 miles9
Lums Chapel11.3 miles7
Amherst15.0 miles9

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 SpadeAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q982120The 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 1368863. 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.