Park County in context

Adjacent counties in the the Yellowstone and Shields corridors. Park County shares the Absaroka and Shields snowpack systems with these neighbors.

Click any neighbor for its full county dashboard.

Snowpack & Moisture Detail

SNOTEL station-by-station read for Park County. Seven stations cover the Shields, Yellowstone, and Clarks Fork drainages.

Park County snowpack is near or above median at higher elevations; lower stations well below as of June 04, 2026. Eight SNOTEL stations monitor county snowpack. Park County watershed snowpack moderately below normal (county avg 83% of median); highest at Fisher Creek (109%), lowest at Porcupine (52%).

Basin Index: Park County watershed snowpack moderately below normal (county avg 83% of median); highest at Fisher Creek (109%), lowest at Porcupine (52%). Drought Monitor (valid 2026-07-28): Worst class D2 (severe) over 1% of the county. Coverage at or worse than each class: D0 100%, D1 100%, D2 1%, D3 0%, D4 0%. Station snapshot as of August 03, 2026 — live dashboard above is current.

Two-Week Rainfall

Observed (prior 14 days) and forecast (next 14 days) · Park County · as of 2026-08-03

Observed detail: 3 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

Park County straddles two major systems: the Yellowstone River main stem, which enters from Yellowstone National Park through the Paradise Valley, and the Shields River, which drains the Crazy Mountains and joins the Yellowstone at Livingston.

The Yellowstone carries senior territorial-era rights dating to the 1870s–1880s; the main stem rarely fails to deliver, even in drought years, due to high-elevation headwater storage in and around Yellowstone National Park. The Shields is a different story — it is chronically over-allocated in low-snow years. Rights on the Shields date to similar vintage but the basin has less high-elevation storage buffer. In drought years, junior Shields rights (post-1900) are routinely curtailed by July. DNRC administers the basin under the prior appropriation doctrine; the Shields River compact history is worth reviewing for any operation considering new development.

Federal Grazing Leases

BLM and U.S. Forest Service permitted grazing on public-land allotments · Park 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 Park 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 1,793,587 acres · land in farms 736,194 acres (41% of the county).

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

Cattle production

Park County supports an estimated 35,000–50,000 cattle and calves, split between the Paradise Valley commercial cow-calf operations and the Shields Valley operations northeast of Livingston. Mountain summer range on the Gallatin and Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness allotments is critical to county-wide carrying capacity. The county has a visible registered seedstock sector, with several well-known Angus and Hereford operations. Tourism and second-home development pressure has reduced agricultural land in some Yellowstone corridors; Paradise Valley operations increasingly compete with non-agricultural buyers for land.

Hay & winter feed

Paradise Valley hay production anchors the county’s winter feed supply. Irrigated Yellowstone River bottomland meadows produce high-quality grass and mixed hay; alfalfa is grown but grass hay is dominant in the valley. First cut typically runs late June; second cut is variable depending on water and season. Shields Valley hay production is more limited and more drought-vulnerable. In tight years like 2026, Park County operations drawing on Shields irrigation face the risk of reduced second-cut yield; Paradise Valley operations are better insulated.

Logistics · sale barns & trucking

Livingston sits at the I-90 / US-89 junction — direct I-90 access to Billings (approximately 115 miles, 1:45 by truck) and to Bozeman (55 miles, 50 minutes). The primary sale outlet is Billings Livestock Commission and the Public Auction Yards. Bozeman-area sales and Three Forks offer alternatives for lighter calves and yearlings. Private treaty is prevalent in the county; cattle buyers work both the Paradise Valley and Shields Valley regularly in fall. No seasonal closure risk on I-90; US-89 to Yellowstone NP can see spring closures but that affects recreation traffic, not cattle movement.