Silver Bow County, Montana
Southwest Montana · Butte · Upper Clark Fork headwaters · I-90 and I-15 interchange at 5,757 ft
- Check current snowpack, drought, streamflow, and soil moisture before stocking, hay buying, or destocking.
- See where Silver Bow 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 10 brand inspector and verify cattle-buyer bonds before consigning.
Snowpack · SWE
Snow Water Equivalent — water that would result if today’s snowpack melted now.
Water-Year Precip
Total precipitation since Oct 1 — the start of the NRCS water year.
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.
Silver Bow County in context
Adjacent counties in the the upper Clark Fork corridor. Silver Bow County shares the Highland Mountains and Continental Divide snowpack with these neighbors.
Click any neighbor for its full county dashboard.
Snowpack & Moisture Detail
SNOTEL station-by-station read for Silver Bow County. The dashboard above gives current aggregate; this section shows where the water actually is.
Silver Bow County snowpack is sharply split — high-elevation stations holding, lower drainages below median as of June 04, 2026. One SNOTEL station monitors county snowpack. Silver Bow County watershed snowpack well below normal (Basin Creek 52% of median).
| Station | Elev (ft) | SWE (in) | % of Median | Relevance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basin Creek | 7,120 | 0.0 | 52% | Silver Bow County — elevation 7120 ft |
Basin Index: Silver Bow County watershed snowpack well below normal (Basin Creek 52% of median). Drought Monitor (valid 2026-06-02): D2 Severe across 36% of county; D1 Moderate across 64% 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) · Silver Bow County · as of 2026-06-16
| Period | Window | Rain (in) | Normal (in) | % of Normal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prior 2 weeks (observed) | Jun 2 – Jun 15, 2026 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0% |
| Next 2 weeks (forecast) | Jun 16 – Jun 29, 2026 | 0.12 | 0.00 | 0% |
Observed detail: 0 measurable-rain day(s) in the prior two weeks; largest single day 0.00 in.
Water Rights, Irrigation & Land Ownership
Silver Bow Creek rises in the Highland Mountains south of Butte and flows north through the county to the Warm Springs settling ponds, where it officially becomes the Clark Fork River. The century-long legacy of copper mining and smelting has left the upper watershed subject to CERCLA (Superfund) remediation, with water use restrictions on portions of Silver Bow Creek itself.
Active irrigation water rights in Silver Bow County are sparse compared to neighboring counties; most deeded agricultural ground is dry-land hay or native range rather than flood-irrigated meadow. What irrigation does occur is primarily on small tributary creeks south of Butte in the Divide and Melrose-area drainages — many with rights dating to the 1880s mining support era. The Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) Superfund settlement has created a complex overlay on water rights in the Silver Bow Creek corridor, with remediation flows managed in coordination with DNRC and DEQ. Downstream, the Warm Springs Ponds system — operated as part of the Superfund remedy — provides some water quality buffering before flows reach Deer Lodge County irrigation headgates. Secondary stock water sources such as developed springs and stock ponds in the Highland Mountains are the practical water infrastructure for the limited grazing that occurs. The county is not subject to major irrigation calls in the traditional agricultural sense, but upstream contamination management can affect downstream water quality deliveries to Powell and Deer Lodge irrigators.
Production & Sales
Operation character, hay base, and how cattle reach market from Silver Bow County.
Cattle production
Silver Bow County has minimal active cattle production relative to its geographic neighbors; the majority of the county’s land area is urban (Butte-Silver Bow consolidated city-county government) or contaminated Superfund land in the Clark Fork floodplain. The remaining agricultural operations are small cow-calf outfits south of Butte in the Divide community area and along the Continental Divide foothills. A handful of larger ranch parcels exist east toward Elk Park and the Jefferson County line, running Angus-cross commercial cows on native range with limited hay ground. Most operators in the county supplement income with off-ranch employment in Butte.
Hay & winter feed
Dryland native grass hay and meadow hay off small tributary creeks accounts for most of the limited forage production in Silver Bow County, with virtually no large-scale flood irrigation due to water quality restrictions and terrain. Small irrigated meadows along Blacktail Creek and a few Highland Mountains tributaries south of Butte are the exception. Operators typically purchase supplemental hay from Beaverhead or Deer Lodge county producers rather than relying on county production in dry years. Growing season at 5,700 feet in Butte is among the shortest in the state — first frost risk by early September limits hay yield potential significantly. [draft — verify against current conditions]
Logistics · sale barns & trucking
The I-15 and I-90 interchange at Butte is one of the best-connected logistics points in western Montana, but that connectivity primarily serves mining and urban freight rather than livestock. The nearest functioning livestock auction is Dillon (65 miles south on I-15) or Missoula (90 miles west on I-90). Butte’s elevation — 5,757 feet at the flats — and proximity to Homestake Pass (6,393 feet) on I-90 means winter trucking delays are common November through March. The Bert Mooney Airport in Butte handles some charter livestock-related flights.
Silver Bow 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 | 714 | 43.4% |
| South Dakota | 175 | 10.6% |
| Minnesota | 95 | 5.8% |
| Iowa | 89 | 5.4% |
| Wyoming | 2 | 0.1% |
When Silver Bow 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.