Ravalli County in context

Adjacent counties in the the Bitterroot-Clark Fork corridor. Ravalli County shares the Bitterroot Range snowpack with these neighbors.

Click any neighbor for its full county dashboard.

Snowpack & Moisture Detail

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

Ravalli 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. Ravalli County watershed snowpack moderately below normal (county avg 88% of median); highest at Daly Creek (96%), lowest at Twelvemile Creek (78%).

Basin Index: Ravalli County watershed snowpack moderately below normal (county avg 88% of median); highest at Daly Creek (96%), lowest at Twelvemile Creek (78%). Drought Monitor (valid 2026-09-15): No drought (D1+) in the county. Coverage at or worse than each class: D0 0%, D1 0%, D2 0%, D3 0%, D4 0%. Station snapshot as of September 19, 2026 — live dashboard above is current.

Two-Week Rainfall

Observed (prior 14 days) and forecast (next 14 days) · Ravalli County · as of 2026-09-19

Observed detail: 4 measurable-rain day(s) in the prior two weeks; largest single day 0.19 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 Bitterroot River runs 100 miles north from Lost Trail Pass to its confluence with the Clark Fork at Missoula, draining roughly 2,800 square miles. Key tributaries — West Fork, East Fork, Skalkaho Creek, and Sleeping Child Creek — carry the bulk of irrigation supply to valley floor ditches.

The Bitterroot basin supports several hundred active irrigation water rights, with the oldest dating to the 1880s when the valley was first settled for orchard and hay production. Senior appropriators hold rights adequate for most normal years, but the basin is considered over-appropriated in dry years — calls on the river have occurred in multiple recent drought years. The primary use is flood and pivot irrigation of hay meadows and grass pasture; orchard and residential demand add to seasonal pressure. Groundwater wells serve domestic and some stock water needs but are not a major irrigation source. Secondary surface sources include several small reservoirs and stock ponds fed by snowmelt in the Sapphire foothills.

Federal Grazing Leases

BLM and U.S. Forest Service permitted grazing on public-land allotments · Ravalli 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 Ravalli 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 1,530,219 acres · land in farms 188,084 acres (12% of the county).

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

Cattle production

Ravalli County operations skew toward smaller cow-calf and stocker outfits on the valley floor with summer grazing on Bitterroot National Forest allotments. The southern end of the valley near Darby and Sula supports larger traditional ranch units; the northern end near Stevensville and Victor has seen significant subdivision pressure. Many operators run 50–150 cows and finish calves for fall sale rather than backgrounding. A handful of larger family ranches in the West Fork drainage still run 300–600 cows on a full forest-valley rotation.

Hay & winter feed

Timothy and orchardgrass mixes dominate irrigated meadow hay in the Bitterroot, with alfalfa-grass blends more common on the warmer benches near Hamilton and Corvallis. Most valley-floor producers can cut two crops in a normal moisture year; a third cut is possible in wet years. Water delivery timing from Bitterroot Irrigation District ditches drives first-cut dates, typically late June. [draft — verify against current conditions]

Logistics · sale barns & trucking

Hamilton is the county seat and commercial hub; Missoula’s Northern Livestock Video Auction and Miles City draws are the primary cattle marketing outlets. US-93 runs the full length of the valley and is generally all-season; Lolo Pass (US-12) can close briefly in heavy snow. Trucking to Missoula runs 45–70 minutes; Billings is a long 5-hour haul. Weigh station at Lolo.

Licensed Processing Plants

3 state-inspected plants operating in Ravalli 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.