Broadwater County, Montana
Central Montana · Townsend · Missouri River Canyon Ferry Reservoir · US-12 midway between Helena and Bozeman
- Check current snowpack, drought, streamflow, and soil moisture before stocking, hay buying, or destocking.
- See where Broadwater 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 12 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
Inches above (+) or below (−) the 10-year normal precipitation for each trailing window. Calendar rolling windows ending today — not the water year (see the separate Water-Year Precip tile for that).
1-mo = last 30 days · 3-mo = last 90 days · 12-mo = trailing year.
12-mo bands: > +1″ wet · −0.5″ to +1″ near normal · −2″ to −0.5″ dry · < −2″ very dry.
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 Condition. A 0–100 county-scale index of rangeland forage conditions relative to this county’s own historical normal, blending satellite-observed vegetation response, growing-season moisture, drought stress, and usability. Higher = more favorable relative to local normal. Categories: 0–25 Poor, 26–50 Fair, 51–75 Good, 76–100 Excellent. Long-Term Forage Potential is a separate long-run rating, not part of the score. Beta — for regional screening and comparison, not a pasture-level forage inventory or stocking-rate recommendation.
How often this updates. The moisture and drought tiles (snowpack, streamflow, soil moisture, rain, water-year precip, drought class) refresh every morning. The Forage Condition score’s satellite vegetation read — and the separate Irrigated Hay/Pasture read — refresh weekly (Mondays), because the underlying satellite imagery only updates on a ~16-day cycle. So the water tiles move day to day; the vegetation reads step forward about once a week.
Broadwater County in context
Adjacent counties in the the Canyon Ferry and upper Missouri corridor. Broadwater County shares the Big Belt and Canyon Ferry headwaters snowpack with these neighbors.
Click any neighbor for its full county dashboard.
Snowpack & Moisture Detail
SNOTEL station-by-station read for Broadwater County. The dashboard above gives current aggregate; this section shows where the water actually is.
Broadwater County’s water supply is almost entirely governed by Canyon Ferry Reservoir on the Missouri River at Townsend, which stores runoff from Lewis and Clark County’s headwaters and the Big Belt Mountains to the east. Direct tributary irrigation relies on Crow Creek and Duck Creek drainages off the Big Belt west slope. [needs editorial] — update with current SNOTEL data each season.
Basin Index: Missouri River at Toston (southern county line) is the downstream exit gauge; Canyon Ferry pool elevation in late June is the primary supply indicator for summer irrigation allocations. [needs editorial — update seasonally] Drought Monitor (valid 2026-06-02): D2 Severe across 2% of county; D1 Moderate across 76% of county; D0 Abnormally Dry across 21% 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) · Broadwater County · as of 2026-06-16
| Period | Window | Rain (in) | Normal (in) | % of Normal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prior 2 weeks (observed) | Jun 2 – Jun 15, 2026 | 0.18 | 1.73 | 10% |
| Next 2 weeks (forecast) | Jun 16 – Jun 29, 2026 | 0.12 | 1.08 | 11% |
Observed detail: 2 measurable-rain day(s) in the prior two weeks; largest single day 0.14 in.
Water Rights, Irrigation & Land Ownership
The Missouri River exits Canyon Ferry Reservoir at Townsend and flows south through the Broadwater County valley to Toston Dam at the southern county boundary. Crow Creek and Duck Creek drain the Big Belt Mountain west face and enter the Missouri between Townsend and Toston.
Canyon Ferry Reservoir (Bureau of Reclamation, completed 1954) fundamentally altered water distribution in Broadwater County, converting a variable snowmelt-driven river into a regulated supply that extends irrigation season reliability. Pre-Reclamation water rights on the Missouri mainstem and its tributaries are senior but have been operationally subsumed into the project water system for most purposes. Crow Creek supports several family operations in the Big Belt foothill country; rights there are senior 1880s-era and fully appropriated by August in dry years. Duck Creek is smaller and less relied upon for irrigation. Bench country east of Townsend and on the east side of the valley runs on stock ponds and springs with no stream irrigation; these operations are most vulnerable in extended drought. The county has relatively few large USFS allotments compared to adjacent counties — most summer grazing occurs on deeded upland pasture or leased state land.
Production & Sales
Operation character, hay base, and how cattle reach market from Broadwater County.
Cattle production
Broadwater County is predominantly cow-calf country with valley-floor irrigated hay supporting wintering operations and dry-land upland pasture carrying summer pairs. Operations average 150–350 cows; a handful of larger outfits run 500+ on a combination of deeded, state lease, and limited USFS ground. Some stocker/yearling enterprises buy calves in the fall and winter them on Canyon Ferry bottom hay and grain before summer turnout. The county’s small size and limited public-land base makes it more intensively managed per acre than neighboring counties with large Forest Service allotments.
Hay & winter feed
Alfalfa-grass mixes on Missouri bottom irrigated ground between Townsend and Toston produce the county’s primary winter feed. Average yields of 2.5–3.0 tons per acre in good water years; second-cut timing (late July) is critical and often tight on water. Dry-land native grass hay is cut on bench ground in July–August, typically yielding 0.5–0.8 tons per acre and highly variable by precipitation. Most operators put up 90–100% of winter feed needs on-farm in normal years.
Logistics · sale barns & trucking
Townsend (US-12) is the county seat and primary shipping hub. Helena auction access is 32 miles west on US-12 (District 10 brand inspection). Bozeman is 65 miles east, with Gallatin Valley auction or Montana Livestock at Billings (130 miles) for larger fall runs. US-12 is the primary east–west corridor; I-15 is accessible 32 miles west at Helena. No significant seasonal road weight limits affect the valley floor, but Big Belt foothill county roads restrict spring trucking.
Broadwater 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Colorado | 1,935 | 14.5% |
| Idaho | 1,819 | 13.7% |
| Nebraska | 1,793 | 13.5% |
| California | 866 | 6.5% |
| South Dakota | 525 | 3.9% |
When Broadwater 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.