Montana
Montana's landscape is vast and the distances are real. Wildfires burn million-acre seasons. Blizzards strand entire highways. The Yellowstone flood of 2022 was unprecedented. And when something goes wrong here, the nearest help may be 100 miles away.
Enter your Montana ZIP for live alerts, forecasts, and county-specific data.
Know your region
Missoula, Kalispell, Hamilton, the Bitterroot Valley. Western Montana burns nearly every summer. The 2017 fire season consumed over 1.3 million acres. Smoke fills the valleys for weeks. The Bitterroot, Clark Fork, and Flathead rivers flood during spring runoff.
Primary hazards: wildfire, smoke, flooding, winter storms, earthquakes
Billings, Livingston, Red Lodge, the Yellowstone corridor. The June 2022 Yellowstone flood was historically unprecedented, washing away roads, bridges, and homes along the river. The Beartooth Pass closes without notice. Earthquake risk from the Yellowstone system.
Primary hazards: flooding, earthquakes, wildfire, winter storms
Great Falls, Havre, Glasgow, Miles City, the Hi-Line. The coldest temperatures in the lower 48 (minus 70 degrees F at Rogers Pass). Blizzards strand travelers. Grassland fires spread across the eastern plains at highway speed. Drought cycles threaten agriculture.
Primary hazards: extreme cold, blizzards, grassland fire, drought
Your hazard profile
Each links to a full guide with during-event protocol, recovery steps, and resources specific to MT.
The 2017 fire season burned over 1.3 million acres. Montana burns nearly every summer. Smoke degrades air quality for weeks. Rural communities face limited firefighting resources and narrow evacuation routes.
Read the wildfires guide →
Montana holds the lower-48 cold record: minus 70 degrees F at Rogers Pass (1954). Blizzards strand travelers for days. Heavy snow loads damage structures. Winter lasts seven months in much of the state.
Read the blizzards and extreme cold guide →
The 2022 Yellowstone River flood was unprecedented, washing away roads, bridges, and homes. Spring snowmelt, especially combined with rain, produces devastating floods. Ice jams cause localized flooding.
Read the flooding guide →
The 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake (M7.3) triggered a massive landslide. The Yellowstone region experiences thousands of small earthquakes annually. Western Montana sits on active fault zones.
Read the earthquakes guide →
Summer storms bring large hail, damaging winds, and lightning that ignites wildfires. Eastern Montana's plains experience the most severe hailstorms. Dry lightning is the primary fire ignition source.
Read the severe thunderstorms guide →
Montana resources
Montana Disaster and Emergency Services. Coordinates disaster response and manages the state's hazard mitigation programs.
Montana wildfire information. Active fire maps, smoke forecasts, fire restrictions, and evacuation orders. Essential from June through October.
Central Montana forecasts. Winter storm warnings, fire weather alerts, and flood advisories for the Missouri River headwaters.
Real-time road conditions, pass closures, chain requirements, and fire-related road closures. Check before every drive in winter and fire season.
June 2022
In June 2022, a combination of rapid snowmelt and heavy rain sent the Yellowstone River to levels never recorded in over a century of monitoring. Roads dissolved. Bridges washed away. Homes slid into the river. Yellowstone National Park closed entirely for the first time in decades. Communities along the river from Gardiner to Billings experienced flooding that exceeded every flood model.
The word used by hydrologists was "unprecedented." Not the casual use of the word. The literal meaning: this had not happened before in the instrumental record. The flood exceeded the design capacity of every bridge and road along the corridor.
For every Montana household near a river, the Yellowstone flood rewrote the baseline. If you live along a mountain river, your flood risk is not defined by what has happened before. It is defined by how much snow is in the mountains and how fast it melts. Monitor spring runoff forecasts. Have an evacuation route. The unprecedented is now a data point.