Richland County in context

Adjacent counties in the the Yellowstone-Missouri confluence country. Richland County shares the lower Yellowstone snowmelt system with these neighbors.

Click any neighbor for its full county dashboard.

Snowpack & Moisture Detail

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

Richland County sits at the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers, giving it access to two major Rocky Mountain snowmelt systems — Yellowstone headwaters from Yellowstone National Park and the Beartooth Range, and Missouri flows regulated through Fort Peck Reservoir. Irrigated production along both river corridors is more reliable than in any neighboring county, but upland range north and south of the river bottoms depends entirely on local precipitation.

Basin Index: Yellowstone River at Sidney reflects upstream snowpack from Park, Stillwater, and Carbon counties; flows are largely unregulated until Intake Diversion Dam near Glendive. Drought Monitor (valid 2026-09-15): Worst class D3 (extreme) over 0.0% of the county. Coverage at or worse than each class: D0 100%, D1 100%, D2 27%, D3 0.0%, 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) · Richland County · as of 2026-09-17

Observed detail: 3 measurable-rain day(s) in the prior two weeks; largest single day 1.65 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 Yellowstone River enters Richland County from the west near Intake and flows to its confluence with the Missouri near the North Dakota border east of Fairview. Sidney sits midway on this reach, with the Lower Yellowstone Irrigation Project serving a significant portion of the county’s cropland.

The Lower Yellowstone Irrigation Project is the dominant water infrastructure in Richland County, with a diversion at Intake delivering water to sugar beet, grain, and hay fields around Sidney. Project water rights are among the senior appropriations on the lower Yellowstone, though the river’s unregulated character means high-demand summer periods can create shortfalls in low-snowpack years. Richland County’s Yellowstone rights predate most downstream users but are junior to some Dawson County appropriations. The Missouri River provides secondary surface water opportunity in the far north of the county. Over-allocation risk on the Yellowstone increases materially in drought years when upstream consumptive use is high across seven Montana counties. Groundwater from alluvial aquifers along the Yellowstone floodplain supplements surface supply for many operations.

Federal Grazing Leases

BLM and U.S. Forest Service permitted grazing on public-land allotments · Richland 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 Richland 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 1,334,116 acres · land in farms 1,147,949 acres (86% of the county).

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

Cattle production

Richland County has a more diversified agricultural base than most eastern Montana counties, with sugar beet production, irrigated small grains, and cow-calf operations all significant. Cow-calf is the dominant livestock enterprise, with commercial Angus-cross pairs on irrigated pasture and upland range. Some backgrounding and stocker programs use the abundant irrigated hay and aftermath grazing from the river bottoms. Operation size tends smaller than further-west ranching counties given the high land value from irrigation and oil and gas activity. No USFS grazing — all private and state lease.

Hay & winter feed

Irrigated alfalfa from the Lower Yellowstone Project is the county’s signature forage product — Sidney-area fields regularly yield 4–5 tons per acre across three cuttings in favorable years. First cutting typically runs late May to mid-June, with the third cutting in late August. Dryland hay from upland meadows supplements but is a minor share of total production. Richland County hay frequently trades into Dawson, McCone, and Wibaux counties in short years.

Logistics · sale barns & trucking

Sidney on Highway 16 and US-2 is the county seat and a full-service agricultural hub, with livestock yards, hay markets, and direct rail access. Richland Livestock is the local sale barn option. Glendive is 35 miles west on US-2. Williston, North Dakota is 35 miles east, and its sale barns and feedlot connections are commonly used by Richland operators. Billings is approximately 4 hours via Interstate 94 west from Glendive. Oil field traffic on Highway 16 can complicate livestock trucking timing; plan around peak oil service truck movements.

Licensed Processing Plants

1 state-inspected plant operating in Richland 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.