Flatwillow, Montana
6 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1993. It stands in the Winnett South census division. It lies in ZIP code area 59087. It stands on Pike Creek. The Survey maps it on the Flatwillow quadrangle. It stands 3,225 feet above sea level.
On record in Flatwillow
Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.
On the National Register 1 record
- Howard Lepper Memorial Halllisted 2020
Topographic sheets covering this place
4 surveys from 6 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1954 USGS Roundup quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1958 USGS Roundup quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1986 USGS Flatwillow quadrangle1:24000
- 1993 USGS Musselshell quadrangle1:100000
Fires near this place
5 since 2001Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 5 fires within 5 miles of Flatwillow between 2001 and 2020, burning about 590 acres in total. 2 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Reported cause | Fires |
|---|---|
| Natural | 2 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 2 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 August 2001 | Natural | 57 acres | Miles City Field Office | HOWARDCOUL |
| 17 August 2010 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 400 acres | North Central Montana District | KLAMERT |
| 8 July 2016 | Natural | 131 acres | North Central Montana District | CORRAL |
| 6 July 2017 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1.0 acres | Northeastern Land Office | not named |
| 13 July 2020 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1.5 acres | North Central Montana District | HIGHWAY 244 |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
39 since 1997Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Flatwillow in 39 storm reports between 1997 and 2025: 27 hail, 6 thunderstorm wind, 4 flood, 1 funnel cloud. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 2025 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | Public reported hen egg size hail. |
| July 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Flatwillow | - | A wind gust of 66 mph was measured at the Mosby South HydroMet site (Montana Climate Office network). |
| June 2023 | Flash Flood | Flatwillow | - | Law enforcement reported water flowing over the roadway on U.S. Highway 87 at mile marker 22. |
| June 2021 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | Public reported, via Facebook, quarter size hail located off of US Highway 87, five miles north of the Musselshell County line. Time estimated from radar. |
| August 2019 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | Public reported hail up to the size of golf balls. |
| August 2019 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | Trained spotter reported quarter size hail, along with heavy rain and trees bending in the wind. |
| June 2019 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | Public reported golf ball size hail. Time estimated from radar. |
| June 2019 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | Petroleum County DES Coordinator estimated hail up to the size of quarters still on the road, twenty minutes after the storm passed. |
| April 2017 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | Public reported nickel to quarter sized hail. |
| July 2017 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | A trained spotter reported penny sized hail in addition to heavy rainfall and wind gusts up to approximately 50 mph. |
| June 2016 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | Public reported quarter sized hail. |
| June 2016 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | Trained spotter reported half dollar hail covering the ground. |
| July 2013 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | Public reported mostly pea-sized hail mixed with some quarter and half-dollar sized hail. Brief, heavy rain. |
| July 2012 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | Spotter estimated quarter-sized hail stones. |
| July 2011 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | Spotter reported that quarter-sized hail covered the ground. |
| June 2011 | Flood | Flatwillow | - | The Musselshell River remained out of its banks through much of June as heavy rainfalls downstream caused significant flash flooding. Flatwillow Creek was a major tributary to the flooding, with McDonald and Box Elder Creeks contributing lesser amounts. |
| June 2011 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | Mostly pea-sized hail with a few hail stones up to the size of quarters. |
| May 2011 | Flood | Flatwillow | - | Rainfall filled up Box Elder, Flatwillow and McDonalds creeks. Several homes in and around Winnett were flooded and roads such as the Dovetail, Valentine, Mosby, East Bench, Petrolia Bench, Old 79 Trail and access roads to the Crooked Creek Marina were washed out, flooded or impassible. |
| May 2011 | Flood | Flatwillow | - | High river levels continued on the Musselshell River and its tributaries. The gauge at Mosby crested at 1843 MST on May 11th at 13.98 feet. This is almost 6 feet above Flood Stage. |
| May 2011 | Flood | Flatwillow | - | The Musselshell River at Mosby reached close to 16 feet on May 23rd (the second highest stage ever), 8 feet above flood stage. A bridge near the junction of Box Elder and McDonald Creeks had 6 of water flowing over it. Most of these creeks remained high or out of their banks until the end of June. |
| August 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Flatwillow | - | Around 70 mph wind blew over a large wooden shed and pushed it 500 feet away from it's foundation. The shed was 48 feet x 18 feet. It was 50 years old but still in good shape and was of solid construction. |
| August 1997 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | Wheat crops in around the community of Scobey were completely flattened by severe thunderstorm winds and large hail. |
| July 2011 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | no account filed |
| June 2011 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | no account filed |
| May 2007 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | no account filed |
| August 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Flatwillow | - | no account filed |
| August 2004 | Funnel Cloud | Flatwillow | - | no account filed |
| May 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Flatwillow | - | no account filed |
| July 2002 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | no account filed |
| July 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Flatwillow | - | no account filed |
| June 2001 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | no account filed |
| July 2000 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | no account filed |
| July 2000 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | no account filed |
| July 2000 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | no account filed |
| July 2000 | Thunderstorm Wind | Flatwillow | - | no account filed |
| July 2000 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | no account filed |
| July 2000 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | no account filed |
| July 1999 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | no account filed |
| July 1998 | Hail | Flatwillow | - | no account filed |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wallview (historical) | 5.9 miles | 6 | |
| Winnett | 12.1 miles | 8 | |
| Kelley | 12.7 miles | 6 | |
| Teigen | 17.6 miles | 8 | |
| Hoyle (historical) | 17.6 miles | 8 | |
| Shay (historical) | 21.1 miles | 8 | |
| Jitney (historical) | 23.7 miles | 9 | |
| Weede (historical) | 26.0 miles | 9 |
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Flatwillow | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q14655612 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 771461. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.



