Powell County in context

Adjacent counties in the the Clark Fork corridor. Powell County shares the Flint Creek and Garnet Range snowpack with these neighbors.

Click any neighbor for its full county dashboard.

Snowpack & Moisture Detail

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

Powell County snowpack is at or above median at all 1 reporting stations 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. One SNOTEL station monitors county snowpack. Powell County watershed snowpack near or above normal (N Fk Elk Creek 117% of median).

Basin Index: Powell County watershed snowpack near or above normal (N Fk Elk Creek 117% of median). Drought Monitor (valid 2026-09-08): No drought (D1+) in the county. Coverage at or worse than each class: D0 21%, D1 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) · Powell County · as of 2026-09-17

Observed detail: 4 measurable-rain day(s) in the prior two weeks; largest single day 0.37 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 drains the Powell County valley floor from the Deer Lodge narrows westward through the Warm Springs bottoms. Key confluences include Flint Creek entering near Warm Springs and the Little Blackfoot River joining near Garrison.

The Clark Fork system through Powell County supports irrigated hay and pasture on approximately 50,000 acres of valley floor, with water rights dating to the 1860s–1880s placer mining and early ranching era. Senior rights holders have priority through most summers, but the river is effectively over-appropriated below Warm Springs during drought years. The Anaconda Superfund legacy affects lower Clark Fork water quality but not primary agricultural diversions above Warm Springs. Secondary sources include the Little Blackfoot River drainage and direct-from-ditch systems off the Flint Creek drainage near Drummond. Well-water supplements are common on bench ground above the valley floor. Smaller creeks off the Garnet Range on the north side of the valley provide limited irrigation for operations on the north bench.

Federal Grazing Leases

BLM and U.S. Forest Service permitted grazing on public-land allotments · Powell 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 Powell 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 1,488,667 acres · land in farms 549,419 acres (37% of the county).

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

Cattle production

Powell County cattle operations are predominantly cow-calf with some backgrounding on valley floor irrigated pasture and Forest Service summer range on the Flint Creek and Garnet ranges. The Deer Lodge valley floor has a mix of 200–800 cow operations; larger ranches run yearlings on Forest Service allotments through summer before weaning and shipping in October. Several operations background calves through winter on stockpiled forage and hay, selling feeder cattle in spring. The presence of Deerlodge National Forest allotments is central to the production model — allotment conditions directly affect stocking rates and fall body condition scores.

Hay & winter feed

Irrigated timothy-brome and alfalfa-grass mixes dominate valley floor hay production; pure alfalfa is limited by altitude and frost risk at the 4,700-foot valley elevation. First cut typically runs late May to mid-June; second cut late July if water holds. Most operations put up 2.0–2.5 tons per acre in average years; dry years drop to 1.5 or below on the second cutting. On-farm hay storage is heavy here — most operations winter cattle without purchased feed in normal years.

Logistics · sale barns & trucking

Primary livestock shipping moves via I-90 through Deer Lodge town. The Missoula livestock auction (Western Livestock/Missoula Stockyards area) is 60 miles west on I-90 and handles most fall run cattle. Some operators truck to Billings (240 miles east) for heavier feeder markets. US-12 east over McDonald Pass connects to Helena and District 10 brand inspection. Seasonal road weight limits on county roads affect spring trucking out of bottom-ground operations.

Licensed Processing Plants

No federally inspected or state-inspected processing plant currently operates in Powell County — the nearest licensed plants are listed below

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.