Missoula County in context

Adjacent counties in the the Clark Fork confluence region. Missoula County shares the Lolo and Rattlesnake snowpack with these neighbors.

Click any neighbor for its full county dashboard.

Snowpack & Moisture Detail

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

Missoula County snowpack is near or above median at higher elevations; lower stations well below at the last spring reading (June 4, 2026). Snowpack has since melted out for the season, so this section shows how the 2026 snow season ended, not current conditions. Four SNOTEL stations monitor county snowpack. Missoula County watershed snowpack near or above normal (county avg 96% of median); highest at Stuart Mountain (129%), lowest at Kraft Creek (66%).

Basin Index: Missoula County watershed snowpack near or above normal (county avg 96% of median); highest at Stuart Mountain (129%), lowest at Kraft Creek (66%). Drought Monitor (valid 2026-09-08): Worst class D1 (moderate) over 0.0% of the county. Coverage at or worse than each class: D0 17%, D1 0.0%, D2 0%, D3 0%, 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) · Missoula County · as of 2026-09-17

Observed detail: 6 measurable-rain day(s) in the prior two weeks; largest single day 0.63 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 Clark Fork River passes through Missoula after receiving the Bitterroot from the south and the Blackfoot from the east, with the combined flow heading west toward Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho. Key agricultural sub-drainages include Rattlesnake Creek, Ninemile Creek, and the lower Blackfoot above its mouth.

Water rights along the Clark Fork in Missoula County are heavily contested and include complex legacy claims dating to the 1880s mining era in the upper watershed. Agricultural appropriators compete with municipal, industrial, and instream-flow needs; the Clark Fork basin is under active adjudication in Montana Water Court. Most irrigation rights in the county are junior relative to upstream Deer Lodge and Powell County holders. The Blackfoot sub-basin east of Missoula has been the subject of significant conservation easement and water trust activity aimed at maintaining instream flows for fish while protecting irrigator rights. Groundwater is used for stock water and some domestic supply but is not a major irrigation source in the valley.

Federal Grazing Leases

BLM and U.S. Forest Service permitted grazing on public-land allotments · Missoula 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 Missoula 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 1,659,526 acres · land in farms 339,770 acres (20% of the county).

🗺  Open the interactive land map for Missoula 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 Missoula 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 Missoula County.

Cattle production

Missoula County supports fewer cattle operations than neighboring Ravalli or Sanders, with most activity concentrated in the Blackfoot Valley east of Milltown and in the Ninemile drainage west of town. Operations tend to be small to mid-size cow-calf units selling calves in fall through Missoula-area video auctions. Several larger historic ranches persist in the Blackfoot corridor, some under conservation easement. Hobby and lifestyle operations inflate farm counts but not cattle numbers.

Hay & winter feed

Irrigated hay production is limited to valley floor parcels along the Blackfoot and lower Rattlesnake; most is orchard grass or mixed grass hay for local consumption. Producers in the Ninemile valley cut one reliable crop with a chance at a second in wet years. Many Missoula County ranchers buy supplemental hay from Ravalli or Sanders counties when local production falls short. [draft — verify against current conditions]

Logistics · sale barns & trucking

Missoula is the regional hub — Northern Livestock Video Auction operates here and draws from multiple surrounding counties. I-90 provides fast east-west trucking access; US-93 south to the Bitterroot is the primary livestock corridor. Trucking to Billings via I-90 runs about 3.5 hours. Missoula airport supports cattle industry infrastructure including vet clinics and feed supply.

Licensed Processing Plants

1 federally inspected and 2 state-inspected plants operating in Missoula 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.