Mineral County, Montana
Clark Fork canyon · Superior · Clark Fork River corridor · 65 mi west of Missoula on I-90
- Check current snowpack, drought, streamflow, and soil moisture before stocking, hay buying, or destocking.
- See where Mineral 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 8 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
No Montana Mesonet soil-moisture station in this county.
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.
Mineral County in context
Adjacent counties in the the Clark Fork canyon. Mineral County shares the Cabinet Mountains snowpack with these neighbors.
Click any neighbor for its full county dashboard.
Snowpack & Moisture Detail
SNOTEL station-by-station read for Mineral County. The dashboard above gives current aggregate; this section shows where the water actually is.
Mineral County snowpack is at or above median at all 1 reporting stations as of June 04, 2026. One SNOTEL station monitors county snowpack. Mineral County watershed snowpack near or above normal (Hoodoo Basin 114% of median).
| Station | Elev (ft) | SWE (in) | % of Median | Relevance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hoodoo Basin | 6,060 | 24.2 | 114% | Mineral County — elevation 6060 ft |
Basin Index: Mineral County watershed snowpack near or above normal (Hoodoo Basin 114% of median). Drought Monitor (valid 2026-06-02): D1 Moderate across 8% of county; D0 Abnormally Dry across 6% of county. Total area in drought: 14% (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) · Mineral County · as of 2026-06-16
| Period | Window | Rain (in) | Normal (in) | % of Normal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prior 2 weeks (observed) | Jun 2 – Jun 15, 2026 | 1.01 | 1.59 | 64% |
| Next 2 weeks (forecast) | Jun 16 – Jun 29, 2026 | 0.10 | 1.50 | 7% |
Observed detail: 3 measurable-rain day(s) in the prior two weeks; largest single day 0.73 in.
Water Rights, Irrigation & Land Ownership
The Clark Fork River is the defining geographic feature of Mineral County, running the full length of the county east-to-west alongside I-90. The St. Regis River joins the Clark Fork near St. Regis, providing the most significant tributary drainage in the county.
Water rights in Mineral County are modest in number and scale compared to agricultural counties further east, reflecting the limited irrigable land in the canyon environment. Most active agricultural rights are on the St. Regis, Graves Creek, and Trout Creek drainages rather than the main Clark Fork. Senior rights date to the 1890s homestead era when small-scale irrigation of bench ground was attempted. The basin is not considered over-appropriated in normal years due to high precipitation and limited demand. Groundwater wells are the primary stock water source for many operations on the timbered benches above the river corridor.
Production & Sales
Operation character, hay base, and how cattle reach market from Mineral County.
Cattle production
Mineral County runs one of Montana’s smallest cattle inventories — operations are typically 20–80 cow units on creek-bottom parcels with summer allotments on the Lolo National Forest. Superior and St. Regis are the only service towns. Most calves are hauled to Missoula for sale in fall. The rugged terrain and limited road access to some allotments makes Mineral operations labor-intensive relative to open-range counties.
Hay & winter feed
Virtually no commercial hay production occurs in Mineral County due to lack of flat irrigable ground. Operators purchase hay from Missoula, Ravalli, or Sanders counties, trucking it in via I-90 or MT-135. Winter feeding periods tend to run long given elevation and north-facing terrain. [draft — verify against current conditions]
Logistics · sale barns & trucking
I-90 runs the length of the county and is the primary asset — trucking to Missoula takes 1 hour, to Spokane about 2 hours. No sale barn in county; operators use Missoula’s Northern Livestock or ship directly to Spokane-area yards. Seasonal road closures on USFS access roads can delay fall gather. Weigh station at Haugan.
Mineral 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.
When Mineral 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.