Hill County, Montana
Hi-Line north-central Montana · Havre · Milk River valley · US-2 corridor near Canadian border
- Check current snowpack, drought, streamflow, and soil moisture before stocking, hay buying, or destocking.
- See where Hill 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 9 brand inspector and verify cattle-buyer bonds before consigning.
Snowpack · SWE
Snow Water Equivalent — water that would result if today’s snowpack melted now.
Water-Year Precip
Total precipitation since Oct 1 — the start of the NRCS water year.
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.
Hill County in context
Adjacent counties in the the Milk River Hi-Line. Hill County shares the Milk River–Bear Paw snowpack system with these neighbors.
Click any neighbor for its full county dashboard.
Snowpack & Moisture Detail
SNOTEL station-by-station read for Hill County. The dashboard above gives current aggregate; this section shows where the water actually is.
Hill County snowpack is critically below median across 1 reporting stations as of June 04, 2026. One SNOTEL station monitors county snowpack. Hill County watershed snowpack critically below normal (Rocky Boy 38% of median).
| Station | Elev (ft) | SWE (in) | % of Median | Relevance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rocky Boy | 4,730 | 0.0 | 38% | Hill County — elevation 4730 ft |
Basin Index: Hill County watershed snowpack critically below normal (Rocky Boy 38% of median). Drought Monitor (valid 2026-06-02): D2 Severe across 19% of county; D1 Moderate across 81% 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) · Hill County · as of 2026-06-16
| Period | Window | Rain (in) | Normal (in) | % of Normal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prior 2 weeks (observed) | Jun 2 – Jun 15, 2026 | 0.93 | 1.47 | 63% |
| Next 2 weeks (forecast) | Jun 16 – Jun 29, 2026 | 0.47 | 1.06 | 44% |
Observed detail: 5 measurable-rain day(s) in the prior two weeks; largest single day 0.71 in.
Water Rights, Irrigation & Land Ownership
The Milk River flows east through the center of Hill County, with Havre sitting at the river’s most important Montana hub. Fresno Dam, 12 miles west of Havre, impounds the Milk River Project’s primary storage reservoir serving irrigators from Havre east into Blaine County.
The Milk River Project (Bureau of Reclamation, 1903) holds the most senior irrigation rights in Hill County, covering roughly 60,000 acres in the Milk River valley between Fresno and Chinook. Project rights are tied to Fresno Reservoir storage and Canadian border flows under the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty, which complicates supply forecasting in low-snow years. Battle Creek and other Bear Paw Mountain tributaries carry local runoff rights from the 1890s–1910s that are generally junior to project rights. The county’s dryland benchlands rely entirely on precipitation and stock wells. Over-appropriation on the lower Milk is a chronic issue; the compact between Montana and Canada means US irrigators can face reduced diversions when Alberta’s allocation is drawn down first.
Production & Sales
Operation character, hay base, and how cattle reach market from Hill County.
Cattle production
Hill County operations split between Milk River valley irrigated hay and cattle outfits near Havre and dryland grain-and-cow operations on the benchlands north and south of the valley. Cow-calf is the dominant enterprise with calves typically sold in October through Havre-area auctions or video sales. Bear Paw Mountain summer range — both private and state lease — is heavily used by Hill and surrounding county operators. Rocky Boy’s Chippewa Cree tribal members run cattle on reservation land bordering the county’s southeast corner.
Hay & winter feed
Alfalfa and grass-alfalfa mix on Milk River Project irrigated ground between Havre and Kremlin is the county’s core hay production zone. First cutting typically occurs late June; a second cutting is common in August on well-watered fields. Dryland hay in the benchlands is primarily native grass cut once in July with tonnage highly dependent on June rainfall. Havre is a regional hay market hub with some surplus moving to range-only counties to the north and east in drought years.
Logistics · sale barns & trucking
Northern Livestock at Havre is the primary sale barn serving Hill and adjacent counties; weekly sales run through fall shipping season. BNSF rail through Havre offers a direct connection to Midwest feedlots and is used for light calf shipments. US-2 is the primary east–west highway; US-87 south connects to Great Falls in about 100 miles. Canadian border crossings at Wild Horse (40 miles north) open some operators to Alberta feedlot markets. Spring road restrictions on county gravel roads typically run March 15 through May 15.
Hill 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Nebraska | 1,514 | 24.4% |
| Minnesota | 763 | 12.3% |
| Colorado | 365 | 5.9% |
| South Dakota | 151 | 2.4% |
| Washington | 83 | 1.3% |
When Hill 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.