Montana Resilience Outlook, 2026

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:01][music] >> Hey folks, this is Dr. Emily Sherning with American Resiliency and let me just say hello to all of our friends in Montana. Thank you Kathy G for your help with research on this video and I also want to thank Carol A, Kelly K, Christopher D and Faded Rose just to name a few of AR supporters in your beautiful state. There are people in Montana who have helped hold AR up for years now and I want to help you all get the firmest grasp you can on every hold you can because there are holds to find there in the Treasure State as we get rolling on our updated state-level resilience outlook series. We're starting off with Montana and scrolling down here for what I've already got on Montana.

[00:00:50]I think it's worth uh wondering why I would start my updated sort of good state state-level outlook series with a state where devoted viewers may remember walking fire path. I have already made a special video about how much Montana is going to be on fire. I've got two big reasons for putting Montana at the beginning of this series. One, I think it's important for everyone to take in what that means about states that don't make the nice list. If the super on fire state is making the nice list. Two, as we take in the reality of this time of change, we need a solid foundation.

[00:01:29]That's what it takes to see through the fire, to persist in the work of repair through landscape change. Because there's another side of the landscape transformation that's happening. There are many of us who dream the prairie dream, who want as much of the most powerful carbon sinking terrestrial ecosystem growing and thriving as we can get. Strengthened by the fires, feeding the elk, feeding the buffalo, feeding the richness of what we could have. I am asking you to anchor that prairie dream, anchor that powerful dream, the dream of the prairie alive in Montana. Let's start checking out some projection information for Montana. You all want to know what to expect to two C, the next step in our warming world and in AMOC down scenarios. I'll tell you what, in an AMOC down scenario scenario where world ocean currents change profoundly and with them all atmospheric wind and water, you know where I want to be? Not by the ocean because the ocean is mad at us and for good reason. But Montana, as you will know, is conveniently far from the sea.

[00:02:37]This whole resilience outlook series is going to focus on factors that impact the survival limits of living things. So we're going to look at dangerous heat, water trends and of course wildfire risk across the state in this video. Right now I've got up on screen the Jackie Pai Atlas. That's going to allow you yourself as well as me in this video to access what I'm pretty sure is the most fluid, effective and accessible visualization for the NCA5 data sets.

[00:03:04]Remember the National Climate Assessment? Like if you go back in my old videos, there are all those dark.gov links that don't go anywhere anymore because they got taken down. AR community, perhaps you'll tolerate a little riff on the rifle creed. At this time there are many copies of the NCA5 data sets. There are many like it. You all know the Doge boys bad touched some of them. This one is ours.

[00:03:28]And our data sets are clean. So let's check out what's going on here. You can see our warming level is set to two C.

[00:03:35]Number of days is set to additional days expected over 105 degrees. You can see that at a glance Montana, you're looking pretty dark here, which is good because where we see white on this map, that means white hot. Dark is where you want to be. Limited increase days over 105.

[00:03:54]Jackie Ryan, she's just heroic in her service to the public. We are pretty sure that no matter what variety of color blindness you might have, she's got you covered to make this engine useful. So let's zoom in a little bit here and look at this hot spot. We've got our biggest hot spot in Custer County looking at additional four four and a half days a year over 105. Let's drop that heat down. Look at that band between uh 100 and 105 degrees. You can see Custer County, you're looking at a couple of weeks of blistering heat and that throughout Eastern Montana, you're probably talking about another couple of weeks of pretty serious summer conditions, but limited projected days over 105. And as we get over into the mountains, Gallatin, we got a lot of folks there. You can see not even a full day over 100 projected. Dropping down to additional days over 95 under at 100.

[00:04:49]Looking still at Gallatin County, you're looking at about four more days over 95 but below 100 degrees. All through the mountains there, that is some pretty decent summer stability. Not a lot of additional days over 95, not a lot of days over 100, no projected days over 105 in Montana's mountain ranges. But Eastern Montana, you can see that those increases in those three heat bands are cumulative and you need some more attention. Let's check out your number of days with the lows above 70.

[00:05:24]And here we're seeing some good news.

[00:05:26]Your projected increase in warm nights, nights over 70, as you can see that is very small. Only a handful of additional nights over 70 projected every year. So even though you're getting that surge of hot summer heat, substantial amount of additional hot days every summer projected at two C for Eastern Montana, if living things can cool down at night, even if it's hot during the day, even if it's 100, 105 during the day, you get much better health outcomes for all your living things in that landscape. You get much less landscape death, much less ecosystem transformation.

[00:06:05]And for those of you in all those lovely little agricultural communities along the rivers in Montana, this persistence of cool nights means that it's much less likely you'll experience crop failure due to heat. I want to give you a little bit of a national picture on that and see how white hot nights are looking throughout the Southern Great Plains. We do anticipate crop failure becoming a major issue across the Southern Great Plains. That trend is happening now.

[00:06:33]People can't even get a hay crop out between the drought and the heat. Hay prices are going crazy here in 2026.

[00:06:40]But I'm going to get just real in the weeds if we start talking communities. I want to talk about water for you all now and that means looking at winter change.

[00:06:49]When we talk about AMOC collapse, I hope many people are beginning to understand that locally, focusing on Montana, that's expected to mean cooling in the Northern Hemisphere. As we appear to cruise towards AMOC collapse, that's likely to bring down those projected summer highs a little bit. It will drop the size of that summer increase modestly, but I would still recommend prepping for the full two C hot season increase so that you got some margin built in in case of major heat waves.

[00:07:21]The big difference with AMOC collapse locally in Montana is likely to come in the winter.

[00:07:27]That is good news for Montana because in a straight-up two C projection here looking at that straightforward National Climate Assessment information, you can see you were losing so much cold.

[00:07:41]Your days below 32, you were talking about losing a month of them in the mountains. And look at how dark it is over in the panhandle, Idaho panhandle, really stands out as a center of national cold loss.

[00:07:54]People sometimes complain about my strong warnings regarding the Idaho panhandle. However, as you can see, the data are what indicates that the Idaho panhandle is going to be so extra super on fire. This view here is just one of multiple layers of information that show a ridiculous level of risk centered at the county level within the Idaho panhandle. I don't see a morally responsible way not to raise a red flag in that situation. But let's explore another factor here. Let's look at the loss of days below zero, which we can see really centered in northeast Montana. The extreme cold changing there.

[00:08:34]What's going on over there? Let's zoom in. Let's zoom in on the satellite map and find out. Whole lot of waterfowl production going on in that corner.

[00:08:44]We're talking about one of North America's premier duck party palaces in northeast Montana. In AMOC down projections, the winters are looking a little warmer, sure, as we move towards a two C average, but they're substantially closer to pre-industrial norms in the projections.

[00:09:04]I think that it's really important to see any signs of potential wildlife and landscape stability in this area because this is an area that drives so much generational stability and growth for North American waterfowl. And that means more stability for many people who work in Montana's outdoor and tourism industries.

[00:09:28]These areas of the Prairie Pothole region that remain pretty intact are very precious both to animals and people.

[00:09:37]I wish I could visualize that change for you on amocenarios.org, but it's been down about a week again.

[00:09:45]I'll keep an eye on it and the next time that website comes up, I'll get some screenshots taken for future outlooks. I have spent a lot of time looking at it.

[00:09:53]We're talking about close to 15 degree shift in favor of pre-industrial winter norms in an AMOC down scenario. I have found multiple sources of modeling in agreement that the fairly near-term AMOC down projections are indicating more typical winter lows across that northern third of the US, Montana and much of the West. I'm sure you're all feeling you could use a more normal winter. I want to look at an important map with you that many of you may want to bookmark from the NRCS, the snow and water interactive map. Thanks again, Kathy G, for making sure this stays on our radar.

[00:10:32]Let's go to the map. So, as we can all see by the overwhelming amount of red on this map, snowpack is looking bad across the western US, but it's not as bad in Montana as in many areas.

[00:10:45]Getting a little bit of a closer view, we can see that there are many areas in Montana where snowpack is measured where we're in the green to blue right now as we're approaching spring. And that can't be said of many areas at all in Washington and Oregon and Utah and down into Colorado, it's just awful this spring. It is likely that as we move in the direction of AMOC collapse, the global system changes may have a stabilizing impact on those northern winters, which would allow for more snowpack accumulation.

[00:11:20]But we got to see what the precipitation trend is to see if Montana is indeed looking at a more moderate outcome for snowpack loss compared to other western states.

[00:11:32]When we think about precipitation trends, Montana is going to be experiencing a push pull. As you can see in figure 2.10 from the NCA5, at 2° C and again at 3° C, Montana in an AMOC up scenario was projected to experience slightly more precipitation.

[00:11:52]Whereas in AMOC down modeling, we see Montana included in the mild overall drought trend that is projected to include most of North America. So, you know, it's good news in a way that the Montana drought trend is not universal.

[00:12:08]It's not a potentially stacked or multiplying drought trend as we might see projected for Arizona or for Southern California.

[00:12:16]These signs, these projections indicate that there may be more years ahead where Montana holds onto some more snowpack than other western states, hopefully slowing down the landscape level change in hydrology. In many parts of the West, we're looking at a very abrupt change, a change happening now from snowpack driven to rain driven watersheds with peak stream flows shift from August to early spring. That's going to drive so much change, rippling change impacts across ecosystems. And it means that surface water is really important in Montana. So, for those of you who call Montana home, I want to direct you to the SWAMP, the surface water assessment and monitoring program for your state.

[00:13:04]This resource will let you see what's going on with surface water right in your area. Montana has pretty good water monitoring. You can get very detailed local information on many factors from the SWAMP. If you want more water info, I want you to check out the video description for more important state level resources and links.

[00:13:25]But let's sum up where we are on temperature and water trends for Montana. Things are looking hotter as we look forward in this time of change, but the heat trends for Montana are not especially life threatening when we look at the national level outcomes. You've got really good cool night preservation, which is a major advantage. The water trend you're looking at is not an unambiguous drought signal. You may stay near flat on precipitation and your loss of snowpack year over year, we have evidence where we can project it may not be as severe as further west year over year.

[00:14:02]A hotter Montana, a Montana that is going to experience hydrological change, water landscape level change where stream flows and snowpack are likely to decrease, maybe not as abruptly, maybe not as badly as other places, but still the trend will probably be downward.

[00:14:20]That's a Montana where we have to expect significant fire. For contemporary risk, let's check out wildfire risk.org. This website offers great quality information on contemporary fire risk. Taking a big picture look at Montana, the risk to homes is high, but your actions that you could take, there are a lot of them, very high potential to increase resilience. And even looking at this bird's eye view, we can see that fire risks are not equally distributed across the state.

[00:14:52]You can get really great city block level visualizations if you explore this website. I just want to take a flyover view of Helena right here where you can see the risks are quite concentrated in that urban wildlands interface. Same thing for Bozeman. There are some areas in Bozeman that are pretty low risk and areas that are higher risk. And then there are communities like Big Sky with higher risk than 96% of communities in the area. As you can see, it's one of the most expensive and most universally flammable communities in the US. So, that was contemporary risk on wildfire risk.org. That was risk today. I think it's worth noting that in the NCA5, looking at projected fire risk, they were projecting a 300 to 400% increase in the number of days where large fires could occur, where the conditions would be right for them in Montana as we continued to progress through this time of change. If you're in Montana or this state is appealing to you as a potential destination, I strongly advise you to look at the contemporary fire risk and take action. You should maintain a fire safe perimeter around your place. What you do as a community, together with your neighbors to reduce the risk of urban wildfire, that's some meaningful resilience building. That's some meaningful risk reduction you can do together. When we look at what we can learn from those terrible LA wildfires, we've seen the way these fires move now.

[00:16:28]Most of the areas where the fire really got in there, to areas where people didn't expect, where they weren't prepared, the community hadn't considered wildfire a contemporary threat. There hadn't been a lot of work done to create fire safe perimeter space. And I'm not trying to blame anyone saying that. Many people are not yet aware of the seriousness of fire risk in contemporary American life. How much urban wildfire is a today problem, and we've got to talk about it to raise awareness, to take community action.

[00:17:01]Everyone wants to believe fire won't come to us, but that belief doesn't protect us. We need to take it in and act. If you are interested in rural outlooks, I am well aware you can't farm everywhere in Montana, but those parts of eastern Montana that do, I think you got a pretty solid hold and a lot of potential. Great potential for resilience building in eastern Montana, those cool nights are worth a lot. And in the mountains, if your community is ready to get serious about water and about fire, your temperature and precipitation outlooks are well within resilience building range.

[00:17:38]But you've got to think about fire. What Montana could become, fire is there.

[00:17:44]You're not getting away from it. Forests are going to burn. We need to look through the fire and see what comes after that. And what that could be is prairie. Those of us who dream the prairie dream, we are not alone.

[00:17:58]American Prairie is just one nonprofit that's already linking up 3.2 million acres for prairie. Elk and bison can roam in Montana on the other side of the fires. Antelope, grouse, prairie sinks carbon deep into the soil.

[00:18:16]There's so many messages out there to plant a tree, and I like trees, but a tree burns. There's that carbon back up in the air.

[00:18:23]A prairie burns. What's above ground is a smaller part of the carbon story.

[00:18:28]Prairie roots go deep, and that's where the life grows and the carbon is stored year upon year. It's deep in the ground, can be 20 ft deep in the ground.

[00:18:39]Even in the difficult future we face, I think there's a shot to build a good future in Montana. And the dream of that future, it's the prairie dream. Prairie is this big. That's the historical extent of the prairie. A huge huge ecosystem.

[00:18:57]But the prairie dream is not just bringing the prairie back. The prairie dream, the prairie could grow beyond where it once was. Areas that are forested now, the prairie could come up.

[00:19:10]When forests burn, the future is not mere char and ash. The future is a blade of grass. That is the way people lived in these lands before for thousands of years, was by the grass and by the buffalo.

[00:19:25]For those of you who, like me, dream the prairie dream, our dream is anchored in Montana.

[00:19:31]Montana, you all have so much potential.

[00:19:34]In so many places, we need to hold on through the fires, tend the land through the fires.

[00:19:39]And Montana, you folks are already super tough. I think you've got a hold worth hanging on to, and I'm wishing you all the best. Fires are coming soon, and the time to build resilience is now.

[00:19:52]Focus on fire safe perimeters and community level wildfire awareness and response.

[00:19:58]Focus on local water. You got to get real local with that water. Resources are right here in this video and in the video description.

[00:20:06]You can do it. Having a shot in these days, even if it's a hard shot, not everyone's got a shot to take, but you do Montana. The time of change is now.

[00:20:17]Let's get ready. Folks, I want to thank the AR community for supporting this work. AR is a 501c3 and everyone who gives to AR, that's what makes this work possible. My heartfelt thanks to all the donors, the volunteers, to everyone spreading the word online, and everyone doing the work on the ground. If you want to learn more, check out our website www.americanresiliency.org and consider becoming a member for additional live chat opportunities at my office hours as well as additional weekly content. Thanks for spending some time learning with me. I'll look forward to talking with you all again soon.