Yellowstone County, Montana
South-central Montana · Billings metro · Yellowstone River mainstem · I-90/I-94 crossroads
- Check current snowpack, drought, streamflow, and soil moisture before stocking, hay buying, or destocking.
- See where Yellowstone County calves moved in 2023 — destinations, seasonal pattern, and shipping windows.
- Look up water rights, parcels, and ownership via Cadastral, DNRC WRQS, and WaterMapper.
- Reach the District 4 brand inspector and verify cattle-buyer bonds before consigning.
Snowpack · SWE
No SNOTEL stations in this county. Basin-index snowpack not tracked.
Water-Year Precip
Water-year precip index not tracked for this county.
Drought Monitor
Worst drought class anywhere in the county per the U.S. Drought Monitor.
D0 abnormally dry · D1 moderate · D2 severe · D3 extreme · D4 exceptional. Percentages = share of county area at or worse than each class.
Streamflow
Cubic feet per second flowing past the nearest in-county USGS gauge right now.
Soil Moisture
VWC = Volumetric Water Content — the percent of soil volume that is water. Montana Mesonet probe average.
Shallow ≈ 4″ depth · Deep ≈ 20″ depth.
Bands (shallow + deep average): ≥ 30 % moist · 22–30 % adequate · 15–22 % drying · < 15 % dry.
Precip Anomaly
NOAA NCEI precip anomaly data unavailable.
Reading this dashboard — what these terms mean
Median vs. mean. We use the median (NRCS standard) so a single very-wet or very-dry year doesn’t skew the baseline.
Water year. Hydrology runs Oct 1 → Sep 30. Most of a year’s snowpack accumulation is captured in the same season it melts.
Percentile (streamflow). 50 = exactly typical for this calendar date. 19 = today’s flow is lower than 81 % of all readings ever recorded on this date. 81 = lower than only 19 %.
VWC (soil moisture). Volumetric Water Content. Rough field bands: under 10 % = dry, 15–25 % = productive growing-season range, over 35 % = saturated.
Drought scale. D0–D4 from the U.S. Drought Monitor, weekly Thursday release. The percentages tell you what fraction of county area is at or worse than each band — a county can be 100 % at D2 with 0 % at D3.
Precip anomaly. Inches above or below the 10-year normal precipitation for that trailing window. Trailing calendar windows ending today, NOT the water year — the Water-Year Precip tile is the water-year measure. Anomaly is in inches; “% of median” is a ratio. Both useful; anomaly is easier to interpret when comparing a dry summer month to a wet spring month.
Forage Score. 0–100 composite that blends snowpack, soil moisture, and drought into one rancher-facing number. Categories: 0–25 Poor, 26–50 Fair, 51–75 Good, 76–100 Excellent.
Yellowstone County in context
Adjacent counties in the the Yellowstone corridor. Yellowstone County shares the Beartooth-Absaroka snowpack system with these neighbors.
Click any neighbor for its full county dashboard.
Snowpack & Moisture Detail
SNOTEL station-by-station read for Yellowstone County. The dashboard above gives current aggregate; this section shows where the water actually is.
Yellowstone County’s irrigation water originates primarily in the Beartooth and Absaroka ranges to the southwest, feeding the Yellowstone River as it bends north through Billings. The county floor sits at roughly 3,000 feet elevation — too low to accumulate meaningful local snowpack — making it entirely dependent on upstream mountain accumulation in Park and Carbon counties. [needs editorial] — update with current SNOTEL data each season.
Basin Index: Yellowstone River at Billings gauge tracks the primary irrigation index for the county’s roughly 150,000 irrigated acres. [needs editorial — update seasonally] Drought Monitor (valid 2026-06-02): D2 Severe across 66% of county; D1 Moderate across 34% of county. Total area in drought: 100% (valid 2026-06-02). Station snapshot as of June 04, 2026 — live dashboard above is current.
Two-Week Rainfall
Observed (prior 14 days) and forecast (next 14 days) · Yellowstone County · as of 2026-06-04
| Period | Window | Rain (in) | Normal (in) | % of Normal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prior 2 weeks (observed) | May 21 – Jun 3, 2026 | 1.55 | 1.32 | 117% |
| Next 2 weeks (forecast) | Jun 4 – Jun 17, 2026 | 1.06 | 1.18 | 90% |
Observed detail: 3 measurable-rain day(s) in the prior two weeks; largest single day 0.98 in.
Water Rights & Land Ownership
The Yellowstone River enters Yellowstone County from the southwest near Laurel, where the Clark’s Fork joins, then flows northeast past Billings toward the Treasure County line. These confluence points concentrate the most senior irrigation filings in south-central Montana.
The Yellowstone River carries some of Montana’s oldest decreed water rights, with many Yellowstone County diversions dating to territorial filings in the 1880s. The river is adjudicated but fully subscribed during low-flow years, meaning junior right holders — anything post-1900 in a drought year — face call risk. Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone enters near Laurel and adds significant flow during peak snowmelt but is itself heavily appropriated upstream in Carbon County. Groundwater wells supplement stockwater across the county’s benchland areas east and south of Billings, though aquifer recharge tracks precipitation closely. Municipal growth pressure from Billings creates increasing competition between agricultural and municipal water interests on the same decrees.
Production & Sales
Operation character, hay base, and how cattle reach market from Yellowstone County.
Cattle production
Yellowstone County runs a mix of cow-calf operations on the benchlands east and south of Billings, irrigated backgrounding on Yellowstone River bottom ground, and stocker operations that use cheap grazing to put weight on calves before moving them to feedlots in Nebraska or Kansas. The Billings livestock market — home to Billings Livestock Commission — is the commercial gravity center for the region, pulling cattle from five surrounding counties. A handful of large feedlot operations in the Laurel and Huntley areas finish cattle locally, but most cow-calf producers wean and ship rather than feed through. USFS allotment access is minimal given the county’s plains character, so summer grazing depends on deeded pasture, state lease, or BLM parcels in the Pryor Mountains to the south.
Hay & winter feed
Irrigated alfalfa and alfalfa-grass mix dominate the Yellowstone and Clarks Fork river bottoms around Laurel, Huntley, and Billings. Most first-cutting runs mid-June, with two to three additional cuttings depending on water availability and September frost. A dry spring accelerates first-cut timing but crimps total tonnage; ranchers watching the Billings gauge should price replacement hay before July if the snowpack report was weak. The Billings hay market typically offers enough liquidity to source winter feed locally, though prices spike sharply in drought years as basin-wide demand concentrates at this market.
Logistics · sale barns & trucking
Billings is the logistics hub for all of south-central Montana — I-90 and I-94 intersect here, and the Billings airport handles livestock equipment and vet supply shipments that smaller counties must truck. Billings Livestock Commission on Third Avenue North runs regular weekly cattle sales with video sale capacity. Trucking from the eastern benchlands to I-90 is straightforward on US-212 and US-87; the only seasonal constraint is spring mud on county roads accessing river-bottom pastures. The rail yards in Laurel and Billings provide a feedlot-to-packer shipping option that most plains counties lack.
Yellowstone County — 2023 Cattle Movement
Source: Montana Department of Livestock, BE-10 brand inspections. Released to Honest Cattle under public-records request. BE-10 inspections are recorded at change of ownership or interstate movement, so totals reflect transactions, not the standing herd.
Top destinations outside Montana
| State | Head | Share of county total |
|---|---|---|
| Washington | 20,910 | 17% |
| Nebraska | 13,530 | 11% |
| Idaho | 9,839 | 8% |
| Utah | 7,180 | 5.8% |
| Wyoming | 4,364 | 3.5% |
When Yellowstone County cattle moved in 2023
Notes: A single animal can be inspected more than once in a year if it changes hands or moves across state lines twice; destination is the buyer's state of record, which is usually but not always the final feedlot. Inspection county = where the inspection took place (often an auction yard or shipping point), not necessarily where the cattle were raised. Data covers cattle only (BE-10) and excludes horse and bison inspections.
Montana Brand Inspector
District Investigator: Stevie Curtiss
Phone: (406) 437-8763
District 11 covers: Yellowstone, Golden Valley, Musselshell, Wheatland
MT DOL Brand Enforcement (general): (406) 444-2045 · brands@mt.gov
Most current and complete roster (incl. local brand inspectors and shipping-point coordinators): MT DOL — Find a Brand Inspector
Cattle Buyers — Montana Licensed
Cattle buyers and dealers operating in Yellowstone County are licensed at the federal and state level, not by individual county. Use the authoritative current rosters below to find an active, bonded buyer for your sale class. Both lists update continuously as bonds and licenses change — they are always more current than any printed roster.
- USDA Packers & Stockyards Bonded Registrant Search — federally bonded MT dealers, market agencies, and packer-buyers. Filter by state “Montana”: USDA P&S Bonded Registrant Search
- Montana Department of Livestock — Licensed Livestock Dealers — state-licensed dealers operating in Montana: MT DOL — Livestock Dealer License
Before consigning cattle to any buyer, verify the buyer’s bond status on the USDA P&S registrant search above. A current bond is your protection against non-payment.