MONTANA · 56 COUNTIES TRACKED DAILY

Montana Counties

Live snowpack, drought, streamflow, soil moisture, rainfall, and forage outlook — for every county in Montana, refreshed each morning.

Use this page to:

Click your county on the Montana map just below to open its full conditions dashboard.
Or use the Western / Central / Eastern buttons beneath the map to narrow the list to one region.
Or type a county name into the search box to jump straight to that county.

Updated every morning at 5:30 AM Mountain · sources: NRCS AWDB, USDM, USGS NWIS, MT Mesonet, and NOAA NCEI

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What we measure · by source

Every county page pulls from five independent public data sources. Coverage varies by what each source actually measures — we report unavailable fields as “not available” rather than fabricating data.

USDM Drought

56 / 56

All counties · D0–D4 weekly

NOAA Precip Anomaly

56 / 56

All counties · 1, 3, 12-mo

USGS Streamflow

51 / 56

No gauge: Carter, Fallon, Garfield, Prairie, Wibaux

MT Mesonet Soil

40 / 56

Shallow + deep VWC

NRCS SNOTEL

26 / 56

Mountain counties · SWE + WY precip

Pipeline. Pulled daily at 5:30 AM Mountain via automated jobs from NRCS AWDB, the U.S. Drought Monitor, USGS Water Services, Montana Mesonet (UM Climate Office), and NOAA NCEI Climate at a Glance. When a source is unavailable for a county, the dashboard shows that field as “not available” rather than omitting it — so you always know what’s measured and what isn’t.

Methods & glossary · reading the county pages

Forage Score: 0–100 composite of U.S. Drought Monitor status, growing-season rainfall (NCEI county rank), and satellite rangeland vegetation, relative to each county’s own history. Snowpack is not used in the growing-season read. Categories: 0–25 Poor, 26–50 Fair, 51–75 Good, 76–100 Excellent. Higher = better expected grazing-season forage. The map, the county cards and every county page use this same score. The score is in beta while it is checked against the Rangeland Analysis Platform, Grass-Cast and USDA pasture-condition reports.
SWE · Snow Water Equivalent: Inches of liquid water in the snowpack — if you melted the snow at a SNOTEL station today, this is how much water you’d get. Higher SWE = more water stored for spring runoff and irrigation.
% of Median: Today’s value vs. the NRCS median for this calendar date (1991–2020 reference period). NRCS uses the median (not the mean) so a single wet or dry year doesn’t skew the baseline. Below 70% = below normal; above 110% = above normal.
SNOTEL: Snow Telemetry — NRCS-operated mountain weather stations. Montana has 96 active sites concentrated in the western and south-central counties. Plains counties without SNOTEL report “No SNOTEL” rather than displaying fabricated data.
D0–D4 · Drought class: U.S. Drought Monitor: D0 abnormally dry, D1 moderate, D2 severe, D3 extreme, D4 exceptional. The percentage shown on each county page tells you what fraction of the county area is at or worse than each band — a county can be 100% at D1 with 0% at D3.
VWC · Volumetric Water Content: The percent of soil volume that is water, measured by Montana Mesonet soil-moisture probes at shallow (5–10 cm) and deep (50–100 cm) profiles. Higher VWC = wetter soil. Useful early indicator of pasture green-up potential and drought stress.
CFS · Streamflow: Cubic Feet per Second — the standard unit for river discharge. Each county page reports the current value from its principal in-county USGS gauge, alongside a day-of-year percentile.
Percentile (streamflow): 50 = exactly typical for this calendar date. 19 = today’s flow is lower than 81% of all readings ever recorded for this date. 81 = lower than only 19%.
Precip Anomaly: Inches above or below the 1901–2000 average for the most recent completed 1-, 3- and 12-month periods, from NOAA NCEI Climate at a Glance. Monthly data, so it lags by up to a month. Not the water year — the Water-Year Precip tile on each county page is the water-year measure.
Water year: Hydrology runs Oct 1 → Sep 30. Most of a year’s snowpack accumulation is captured in the same season it melts.
BE-10: Montana Department of Livestock brand-inspection form for cattle. Recorded at change of ownership or interstate movement, so totals reflect transactions, not the standing herd.

Range Tools for Ranchers

Check your own ranch's range condition and 20-year trend for free with the USDA's Rangeland Analysis Platform — and learn how to read the results in ranching terms.

Read Your Own Ground: The RAP Guide →

Montana Counties

Montana Counties

Highest stress right now

Western Montana 15 counties

Central Montana 23 counties

Eastern Montana 18 counties

What we measure · by source

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