Meagher County in context

Adjacent counties in the the Smith River and Crazy Mountain front. Meagher County shares the Smith River headwaters snowpack with these neighbors.

Click any neighbor for its full county dashboard.

Snowpack & Moisture Detail

SNOTEL station-by-station read for Meagher County. Seven stations cover the Smith River headwaters and the Castle / Big Belt / Crazy fronts.

Meagher County snowpack is near or above median at higher elevations; lower stations well below as of June 04, 2026. Seven SNOTEL stations monitor county snowpack. Meagher County watershed snowpack near or above normal (county avg 90% of median); highest at Elk Peak Alt (159%), lowest at Pickfoot Creek (46%).

Basin Index: Meagher County watershed snowpack near or above normal (county avg 90% of median); highest at Elk Peak Alt (159%), lowest at Pickfoot Creek (46%). Drought Monitor (valid 2026-07-28): Worst class D2 (severe) over 54% of the county. Coverage at or worse than each class: D0 93%, D1 80%, D2 54%, 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) · Meagher County · as of 2026-08-02

Observed detail: 2 measurable-rain day(s) in the prior two weeks; largest single day 0.21 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

Meagher County water rights center on the Smith River, which runs north through White Sulphur Springs before turning west to join the Missouri near Ulm in Cascade County.

The Smith River system is one of Montana’s more tightly contested drainages in dry years. Rights date to the 1870s–1890s settlement era; senior rights are generally adequate in most years, but the Smith is over-appropriated relative to late-season low flows in severe drought years. The Big Belt Mountain tributaries (Tenderfoot Creek, Sheep Creek, and the Big Belt drainage generally) provide the most reliable high-elevation storage. Castle Mountain tributaries on the eastern county edge are smaller and more drought-vulnerable. DNRC administers the basin under prior appropriation; the Smith River Canyon stretch — popular for float recreation — has seen tension between agricultural and recreational interests over summer flows.

Federal Grazing Leases

BLM and U.S. Forest Service permitted grazing on public-land allotments · Meagher 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 Meagher 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 1,530,796 acres · land in farms 880,397 acres (58% of the county).

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

Cattle production

Meagher County supports an estimated 35,000–45,000 cattle and calves in a classic central Montana cow-calf structure: valley-floor winter base along the Smith River and its tributaries, with mountain summer range on Helena/Lewis & Clark National Forest allotments in the Big Belts. The county has above-average operation sizes (avg ~5,100 acres) reflecting the expansive bench and mountain country. Commercial Angus and crossbreds dominate. Some of the larger operations run stocker cattle through the summer on mountain range, buying calves from neighboring counties in spring.

Hay & winter feed

White Sulphur Springs sits in a productive hay basin. Irrigated Smith River bottomland meadows produce grass and mixed hay adequate for most county operations in average years. Alfalfa is grown on some operations but grass hay dominates given the climate and elevation. First cut is typically early to mid-July at valley elevation (4,200 ft); second cut in late August on well-watered ground. In drought years like 2026, soil moisture deficits will suppress first-cut yields even where irrigation water delivers on schedule.

Logistics · sale barns & trucking

White Sulphur Springs is approximately 100 miles from Billings (US-191 south to I-90 east, roughly 1:45 by truck) and about 80 miles from Great Falls via US-89 north. Both Billings Livestock Commission and the Great Falls auction are viable depending on the run. The county has limited direct interstate access — US-89 and US-12 are two-lane highways with seasonal variability. Private treaty is significant here as in most Montana cow counties; cattle buyers from Billings and Great Falls work the county regularly. Spring breakup on secondary roads can delay movement; the US-89 corridor stays open year-round.