About

The Montana Mesonet is a network of 215+ stations operated by the Montana Climate Office at the University of Montana, measuring temperature, humidity, wind, precipitation, and soil conditions to support drought monitoring and land management statewide.

In 2020, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers funded 205 HydroMet stations across central and eastern Montana — one per ~500 sq mi — to improve drought and flood forecasting across the Upper Missouri River Basin. Each station includes a pan-tilt-zoom camera capturing photos in all cardinal directions, toward the sky, and at the snowpack.

Using the Photo Explorer

• Date & Time — Browse any date and hour; use ▲▼ to step day by day.
• Direction — Pick a camera angle to show that view across all stations at once.
• Click a station — Open a photo gallery for that station; click any photo to enlarge.
• Zoom & pan — Scroll or pinch to zoom; drag to pan. This button resets the view.
• Counties — Toggle county boundaries.
• Export — Download a PNG of the current map.
• Share — Copy a shareable link to your clipboard.

Why is the grid skewed?

The stations sit on a survey grid aligned with the Montana–North Dakota border, using a coordinate system designed to minimize distortion across the UMRB. On this map's Lambert Conformal Conic projection, that alignment appears as a rotation.