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 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. Silver Bow County watershed snowpack well below normal (Basin Creek 52% of median).

Basin Index: Silver Bow County watershed snowpack well below normal (Basin Creek 52% of median). Drought Monitor (valid 2026-09-15): Worst class D1 (moderate) over 60% of the county. Coverage at or worse than each class: D0 100%, D1 60%, 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) · Silver Bow County · as of 2026-09-17

Observed detail: 1 measurable-rain day(s) in the prior two weeks; largest single day 0.10 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

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.

Federal Grazing Leases

BLM and U.S. Forest Service permitted grazing on public-land allotments · Silver Bow 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 Silver Bow 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 459,513 acres · land in farms 68,857 acres (15% of the county).

🗺  Open the interactive land map for Silver Bow 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 Silver Bow 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 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.

Licensed Processing Plants

4 federally inspected and 2 state-inspected plants operating in Silver Bow 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.