Custer County in context

Adjacent counties in the the Miles City trade radius. Custer County shares the upper Yellowstone and Tongue River headwaters with these neighbors.

Click any neighbor for its full county dashboard.

Snowpack & Moisture Detail

SNOTEL station-by-station read for Custer County. The dashboard above gives current aggregate; this section shows where the water actually is.

Custer County’s water supply centers on the Yellowstone River mainstem and the Tongue River, which enters the Yellowstone at Miles City — one of eastern Montana’s most significant river confluences for stock water and irrigation. Snowpack from the Wyoming Bighorns feeds the Tongue while upper Yellowstone headwaters in Park County drive mainstem flows.

Basin Index: Yellowstone mainstem at Miles City gauge reflects cumulative headwater snowmelt; Tongue River contribution variable by Wyoming compact allocation year. Drought Monitor (valid 2026-09-08): Worst class D3 (extreme) over 20% of the county. Coverage at or worse than each class: D0 100%, D1 97%, D2 58%, D3 20%, D4 0%. Station snapshot as of September 17, 2026 — live dashboard above is current.

Two-Week Rainfall

Observed (prior 14 days) and forecast (next 14 days) · Custer County · as of 2026-09-17

Observed detail: 2 measurable-rain day(s) in the prior two weeks; largest single day 0.04 in.

Forecast source: NWS/NOAA api.weather.gov (days 1–7) blended with Open-Meteo gridded model (days 8–14). The next-14-day total is model-derived — NOAA quantitative precipitation forecast is precise only through ~7 days, and days 8–14 are a model blend, not an observed gauge reading.

Water Rights, Irrigation & Land Ownership

The Tongue River enters the Yellowstone at Miles City, creating the county’s defining hydraulic feature and concentrating both the irrigation diversion infrastructure and the region’s most senior stock water filings. Downstream Yellowstone rights through Terry are well-established but face competition from upriver agricultural demand in wet and dry years alike.

Custer County holds some of the most senior Yellowstone River irrigation rights in eastern Montana, with many filings dating to the 1880s and 1890s homestead era around Miles City. The Tongue River compact between Montana and Wyoming (ratified 1996) allocates flows and creates call risk for junior Montana holders during drought years when Wyoming demand is high. Pumpkin Creek and the lower Powder River drainage south of the county seat contribute minor surface flows but support significant stock reservoir systems. The Miles City area’s irrigated agriculture is dominated by grass hay and alfalfa for a strong local feedlot and backgrounding sector. Groundwater is reliable in the Yellowstone River alluvium for stock wells within a half-mile of the river but degrades quickly on the bentonite uplands. Secondary ephemeral drainages including Sunday Creek and O’Fallon Creek provide spring runoff for reservoir recharge but are unreliable by July.

Federal Grazing Leases

BLM and U.S. Forest Service permitted grazing on public-land allotments · Custer County

AUMs (BLM) and head-months (USFS) are both animal-unit-months — one animal grazing for one month, the standard measure of authorized use. Acres are BLM public acres and USFS GIS acres on the mapped allotments.

Statewide maps: BLM allotment map · Forest Service allotment map. Excludes Montana DNRC state-trust grazing leases.

Land Resources

Three independent estimates of how Custer County’s land is used — shown side by side, never blended

Every acreage figure below comes from an independent source that measures the land a different way. We show them side by side — and never blend reported acreage, satellite pixels and tax classifications into one unexplained number. Total county area 2,421,317 acres · land in farms 2,137,368 acres (88% of the county).

🗺  Open the interactive land map for Custer County →
See crops, range, irrigated fields, public land and ownership parcels drawn live on the map.

Principal crops — official vs. satellite

These columns measure different things, so they should not match. The Census counts acres actually harvested in the census year, as reported by producers; the Cropland Data Layer counts every acre the satellite saw in that crop, including fields in a crop–fallow rotation and stands not harvested. Winter wheat is the clearest example: much of the county’s wheat ground sits in fallow in any given year, so the satellite total runs well above harvested acres. CDL also over-attributes hay and forage on native range. “Withheld” means the Census suppressed the value to protect an individual operation’s privacy.

How the county’s acres classify

Three ways of counting the same ground. Census figures are producer-reported acres in farms; the satellite column is a wall-to-wall pixel classification of the whole county (so it also sees developed land, water and non-farm ground the others do not); the assessment column is the Montana Department of Revenue’s parcel-level tax classification (CAMA), which is why its cropland total tracks the Census closely while the satellite tends to run higher. Developed and open-water rows come only from the satellite. Where they disagree, no single number is “wrong” — they are measuring different things.

Irrigated land, three independent ways

The single most important acreage figure for a cattle operation, and the three sources genuinely differ. The Census counts acres actually irrigated and harvested in the census year; the Montana DOR figure is what is classified and taxed as irrigated; the DNRC mapping captures the full remote-sensed irrigated extent, including ground that carries irrigation but was idle or in another use that year — so it usually reads highest. We publish all three rather than pick one.

What each estimate means

• USDA Census of Agriculture — producer-reported, the official record. Highly credible, but taken every five years and suppressed in counties where a value would identify a single operation.
• Satellite (Cropland Data Layer) — USDA’s annual, wall-to-wall satellite classification. Complete county coverage every year, but it infers crops from imagery, so it mislabels some ground and over-calls hay and forage on native range.
• Tax / assessment — Montana Department of Revenue parcel-level classification from the CAMA assessment roll (2026 tax year), aggregated from the Montana State Library cadastral. Parcel- and ownership-based; a land classification, not an annual crop report.

Sources: USDA NASS Census of Agriculture 2022 (Quick Stats); USDA Cropland Data Layer 2023 (CropScape zonal statistics, USDA-NASS); Montana Department of Revenue CAMA assessment acreage via the MSDI cadastral parcels layer (tax year 2026); Montana DNRC Statewide Irrigation dataset. Prepared by Dirk Adams with the assistance of AI.

Local Help

Verified contacts and official destinations for Custer County — not a directory dump, just where to actually call

Extension, USDA, market, brand and diagnostic links go to the official Montana source; the DNRC office and phone are the specific regional office serving this county. Provider directories (veterinarians, feed dealers) will be added only once a repeatable verification standard is in place. Prepared by Dirk Adams with the assistance of AI.

Production & Sales

Operation character, hay base, and how cattle reach market from Custer County.

Cattle production

Custer County is one of Montana’s premier cow-calf and stocker counties, anchored by the Miles City Livestock Commission — one of the largest cattle auction facilities in the northern Great Plains. Operations range from 200-cow family units along the river bottom to 2,000-plus-cow outfits running BLM and state lease ground to the south toward the Powder River drainage. Yearling stocker programs are widespread, with fall runs of 600–900 lb steers moving heavily through Miles City in October and November. A modest feedlot sector near Miles City uses local hay and imported corn to background calves for northern plains packers.

Hay & winter feed

Flood-irrigated grass hay and alfalfa along the Yellowstone between Miles City and Terry is the winter feed backbone. First cutting runs mid-to-late June depending on Yellowstone diversion timing; second cutting is common in wetter years. Hay ground is limited relative to the county’s cattle numbers, making purchased hay from Yellowstone Valley operations to the west a standard budget line for larger operations. Current-year production tracks Yellowstone River diversion availability and early-summer rainfall.

Logistics · sale barns & trucking

Miles City Livestock Commission on US-12 is the regional hub, drawing consignments from five surrounding counties. I-94 bisects the county east-west, putting Miles City 2.5 hours from Billings and 4 hours from Bismarck. US-12 north toward Jordan and US-212 south toward Broadus connect outlying range country. Trucking infrastructure in Miles City is well-developed with multiple livestock haulers. Spring road bans on county roads south of the river typically run March through mid-May.

Licensed Processing Plants

1 federally inspected plant operating in Custer County — establishment IDs and contacts, verified against the federal and state directories

Meat from federally inspected and state-inspected plants can be sold; custom-exempt plants are not listed here. Verified August 2026 against the USDA FSIS Meat, Poultry & Egg Product Inspection Directory and the Montana Department of Livestock state plant list (Jan 2026). Grants of inspection change — call before you haul.