19 Montana Counties Declared Drought Disaster Areas

It's early in the year, and we're already talking about drought here in Montana. The United States Department of Agriculture has named a total of nineteen counties in Montana as natural disaster areas due to prolonged drought conditions.

The notice declares the following four counties to be the primary counties affected:

Blaine
Broadwater
Fergus
Jefferson

Neighboring counties are also impacted by this declaration, adding:

Chouteau
Deer Lodge
Gallatin
Golden Valley
Hill
Judith Basin
Lewis and Clark
Madison
Meagher
Musselshell
Petroleum
Phillips
Powell
Silver Bow
Wheatland

The counties all experienced drought conditions determined to be Severe, Extreme, or Exceptional, as measured by the US Drought Monitor, for 8 or more continuous weeks.

What is the US Drought Monitor?

It's a project by the University of Nebraska - Lincoln to track and record drought conditions across the country. Their analysis assigns a number between 0-500 to a given geographical area, be it a region, a specific state, or a county. Lower numbers are better, as 0 means no drought conditions at all, while 500 means the entire area being analyzed is under the worst drought conditions.

The data is interesting to look at, but I will readily admit I don't have a clue what any of it really means or how to make sense of it. Thankfully, there are a number of explanatory videos put out by the project that break it down.

I'm a farmer in one of those counties. What do I do?

Farmers in all the affected counties are now eligible to apply for emergency loans through the Farm Service Agency. The deadline for applying for the loans in the end of August.