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Mesonet Photo Explorer

A service of the Montana Climate Office

What this shows

Photos from the cameras on Montana Mesonet HydroMet stations, one cell per station, all taken at the date, time and direction you choose. In 2020 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers funded 205 HydroMet stations across central and eastern Montana, one per ~500 sq mi, and each carries a pan-tilt-zoom camera that photographs North, East, South and West on a schedule.

The cells tile a survey grid aligned with the Montana–North Dakota border, designed to keep distortion low across the Upper Missouri River Basin. On this web map they appear as gently rotated squares. A cell with no photo had no picture at that time; its camera was offline or the photo has not arrived yet.

How to use it

  • Date & Time: browse any date. The Time menu lists the times the cameras were scheduled to shoot on the chosen day. The ‹ and › buttons step a day at a time. If the chosen time wasn't shot that day, the next one that was is shown, and the page says so. All times are Mountain Time.
  • Direction: pick North, East, South or West to show that view across every station at once.
  • Search: press / to jump to the search box, then ↑/↓ and Enter to fly to a station and open its photos.
  • Select a station: click its cell to open the station's photos in a panel. Click or press Enter on a photo to enlarge it. ←/→ or the arrow buttons step through stations; on a touch screen, swipe the enlarged photo.
  • Zoom & pan: scroll or pinch to zoom, drag to pan, and use the +/− and full-extent buttons at top right.
  • Boundaries: show county lines and tribal nation boundaries, which lightly shade the photos.
  • Single-key shortcuts can be turned off by adding ?kbd=off to the URL. It sticks while you browse.

Share or bookmark

The address bar always holds the full view: date, time, direction, boundaries, the map's position and any open station. Share copies that link, and a bookmark returns to the same photos. Export downloads a PNG of the map.

Data

Stations, their locations and their grid cells come from the Montana Mesonet API. The camera schedule and the photos come from the Mesonet photo archive, kept since September 2022.