Roosevelt County, Montana
Northeast Montana Missouri River breaks · Wolf Point · Missouri River and Poplar River confluence · US-2 Hi-Line
- Check current snowpack, drought, streamflow, and soil moisture before stocking, hay buying, or destocking.
- See where Roosevelt 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 6 brand inspector and verify cattle-buyer bonds before consigning.
Snowpack · SWE
No SNOTEL stations in this county. Basin-index snowpack not tracked.
Water-Year Precip
Water-year precip index not tracked for this county.
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
VWC = Volumetric Water Content — the percent of soil volume that is water. Montana Mesonet probe average.
Shallow ≈ 4″ depth · Deep ≈ 20″ depth.
Bands (shallow + deep average): ≥ 30 % moist · 22–30 % adequate · 15–22 % drying · < 15 % dry.
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.
Roosevelt County in context
Adjacent counties in the the Missouri River Hi-Line corridor. Roosevelt County shares the Fort Peck reservoir and Missouri system with these neighbors.
Click any neighbor for its full county dashboard.
Snowpack & Moisture Detail
SNOTEL station-by-station read for Roosevelt County. The dashboard above gives current aggregate; this section shows where the water actually is.
Roosevelt County’s primary water supply flows through it — the Missouri River carries upstream Rocky Mountain snowmelt regulated through Fort Peck Reservoir in Valley County, providing a more reliable base flow than purely local precipitation. Tributary systems including the Poplar River enter from the north with unregulated prairie flows. The county benefits from Fort Peck’s carryover storage in dry cycles, though river-bottom irrigation allocations are still subject to senior priority administration. [needs editorial] — update with current SNOTEL data each season.
Basin Index: Missouri River flows at Wolf Point reflect Fort Peck Reservoir releases upstream; local tributary inputs from the Poplar and Big Muddy are precipitation-driven and highly variable. [needs editorial — update seasonally] Drought Monitor (valid 2026-06-02): D3 Extreme across 16% of county; D2 Severe across 64% of county; D1 Moderate across 20% of county. Total area in drought: 100% (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) · Roosevelt County · as of 2026-06-16
| Period | Window | Rain (in) | Normal (in) | % of Normal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prior 2 weeks (observed) | Jun 2 – Jun 15, 2026 | 0.16 | 0.00 | 0% |
| Next 2 weeks (forecast) | Jun 16 – Jun 29, 2026 | 0.98 | 0.00 | 0% |
Observed detail: 4 measurable-rain day(s) in the prior two weeks; largest single day 0.06 in.
Water Rights, Irrigation & Land Ownership
The Missouri River bisects Roosevelt County east-west, with Wolf Point and Culbertson as the main river-corridor towns. The Poplar River enters from the north near Poplar, and Big Muddy Creek joins near Culbertson, both adding unregulated prairie tributary flows to the main stem.
Missouri River water rights in Roosevelt County are among the older and more senior in the state, with irrigation filings dating to the early 1900s along the river bottoms. Fort Peck Reservoir storage upstream in Valley County provides buffered releases that moderate low-flow years for downstream junior rights holders. The Fort Peck Indian Reservation covers the northern half of Roosevelt County, and tribal water rights under the federal reserved rights doctrine hold senior priority over state-based appropriations on multiple reaches. Over-allocation is a real concern on smaller tributaries in dry years. River-bottom irrigated meadows typically produce two cuttings of alfalfa or alfalfa-grass mix; upland range is dryland only. Rural water districts serve most stock-water needs away from the river corridor.
Production & Sales
Operation character, hay base, and how cattle reach market from Roosevelt County.
Cattle production
Roosevelt County supports a layered production structure: river-bottom operations running irrigated hay and cow-calf pairs, upland dryland ranches on the breaks north and south of the Missouri, and Fort Peck tribal operations on the reservation. Commercial Angus and Angus-cross dominate off-reservation; tribal ranches run a mix of breeds including some retained Hereford-influence genetics. Operation size ranges widely from 100-cow family units to larger tribal herd enterprises. Some stocker and yearling programs exist on the better grass range in the breaks country.
Hay & winter feed
Irrigated alfalfa and alfalfa-grass hay from the Missouri River bottoms is the county’s premium forage product, typically supporting two cuttings with first cutting in mid-June and second in early August. Upland operators rely on dryland native hay and crested wheatgrass meadows, which produce one cut in July weather permitting. River-bottom hay quality is consistently higher and serves as a trade commodity trucked to neighboring dryland counties in short years.
Logistics · sale barns & trucking
Wolf Point on US-2 is the county seat and commercial center, with the Hi-Line railroad corridor and US-2 providing east-west movement. Wolf Point Livestock is the primary local sale barn. Culbertson handles some sales east toward the North Dakota border. Trucking to Billings is approximately 5 hours via US-2 west to Glasgow then south; Glendive is 2.5 hours southeast on Highway 16 and US-2. Spring breakup and gumbo roads on county two-tracks can isolate some operations for 2–4 weeks.
Roosevelt 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.
Top destinations outside Montana
| State | Head | Share of county total |
|---|---|---|
| Nebraska | 3,792 | 20.5% |
| North Dakota | 2,200 | 11.9% |
| South Dakota | 2,173 | 11.8% |
| Minnesota | 1,426 | 7.7% |
| Colorado | 981 | 5.3% |
When Roosevelt 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.