Valley County in context

Adjacent counties in the the lower Milk River and Fort Peck Reservoir corridor. Valley County shares the Milk River watershed and Fort Peck system with these neighbors.

Click any neighbor for its full county dashboard.

Snowpack & Moisture Detail

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

Valley County sits at the confluence of Montana’s Milk River and the upper end of Fort Peck Reservoir, giving it two reliable surface water sources that most Hi-Line counties lack. The Milk River enters Fort Peck near Glasgow after traversing 600 miles from the Rocky Mountain Front, delivering snowmelt-driven spring flows that charge the reservoir. Valley County operators along the Milk River corridor and the reservoir’s northern arms have better stock water security than nearly any other northeastern Montana county.

Basin Index: Milk River enters Fort Peck Reservoir near Glasgow; valley irrigators and reservoir-edge operators have comparatively stable water access through most drought years. Drought Monitor (valid 2026-07-28): No drought (D1+) in the county. Coverage at or worse than each class: D0 100%, D1 0%, D2 0%, D3 0%, D4 0%. Station snapshot as of August 02, 2026 — live dashboard above is current.

Two-Week Rainfall

Observed (prior 14 days) and forecast (next 14 days) · Valley County · as of 2026-08-01

Observed detail: 0 measurable-rain day(s) in the prior two weeks; largest single day 0.00 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

Valley County occupies the lower Milk River valley where the river enters Fort Peck Reservoir near Glasgow, making it the endpoint for the entire Milk River watershed’s flows from Canada and the Rocky Mountain Front.

Water rights on the lower Milk River near Glasgow include some of the more senior state appropriations in the drainage, dating to the 1890s–1910s homestead era, though all remain junior to the Fort Belknap Reservation’s Winters rights to the west. Fort Peck Reservoir, impounded by the Bureau of Reclamation dam completed in 1940, provides regulated storage that benefits downstream Valley County by extending flows past natural low-water periods. However, the Corps of Engineers controls reservoir releases primarily for navigation and flood control rather than agricultural irrigation. The Milk River Irrigation Project delivers water to Glasgow-area farms through federal infrastructure. Northern and eastern county pastures away from the river have no surface water rights and depend on stock dams. Valley County’s overall water position is among the strongest in northeastern Montana due to the Milk River corridor concentration of senior rights and reservoir access.

Federal Grazing Leases

BLM and U.S. Forest Service permitted grazing on public-land allotments · Valley 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 Valley 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 3,152,714 acres · land in farms 1,696,229 acres (54% of the county).

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

Cattle production

Valley County runs a mix of cow-calf and yearling stocker operations, with Glasgow serving as the commercial hub. Milk River valley floor operations tend to be smaller and more intensive, combining irrigated hay production with cow-calf programs. The county’s dryland bench country supports larger range units with 300–700 cows on native grass. Fort Peck Reservoir shoreline grazing adds a unique forage resource in wet years when the draw-down zone greens up. No significant USFS allotment presence; most grazing is on BLM, state lease, and deeded land.

Hay & winter feed

Glasgow-area Milk River valley produces irrigated alfalfa and grass hay on some of the better ground in northeastern Montana. First cutting typically starts in late June, with second cutting possible in good moisture years. Valley operators are net sellers of hay to drier Phillips and Daniels county neighbors in drought years. Dryland hay production on upland acres is variable and weather-dependent. [draft — verify against current conditions]

Logistics · sale barns & trucking

Glasgow (US-2 / MT-24) is the regional hub with the Glasgow Livestock Auction as the primary fall shipping venue. Havre (160 miles west on US-2) and Sidney (90 miles east via MT-16) provide alternative markets. Fort Peck town and Nashua are secondary shipping points. Trucking to Billings runs 5–6 hours via US-2 to US-191 south, adding cost relative to south-central Montana operations. The Glasgow airport handles occasional air-freight veterinary supplies and production records for larger operations.