FEMA Records
9
Low volume
Montana · FEMA + NOAA + National Risk Index
Judith Basin County, MT
9 FEMA disaster declarations (1975-2026), with a FEMA National Risk Index rating of Very Low. Most common hazard: Severe Storm.
- 9
- FEMA declarations
- 7
- Major disasters
- 6
- NRI risk · Very Low
- Severe Storm
- Top hazard
The verdict
Start with the local benchmark for Judith Basin County: 9 FEMA declaration records are 18% below the Montana county mean, even though the count is higher than 8% of counties in the national registry. On FEMA's distinct National Risk Index model, which combines expected loss with vulnerability and resilience, the county ranks safer than 6%.
- Safer than 6%
- of U.S. counties for FEMA National Risk Index score
- Very Low
- FEMA National Risk Index rating
- 9
- FEMA declarations vs 21 national county avg
- 3
- severe storm declarations, the most common hazard here
FEMA's National Risk Index and its declaration registry are separate measures. This county's registry includes Major Disaster (DR) and Emergency (EM) records; an EM authorizes a narrower set of federal assistance than a DR.
FEMA OpenFEMA declaration desk
County FIPS 30045 · Judith Basin County 9 declarations · rank 3009/3,266
DECL-LIGHT · MAJOR-MID · RANK-LOWER · PHOTO-FINISH · NRI-LOW · ACT-MODERATE · TYPE-LEAD · VS-ST-BELOW
- DECL-LIGHT 9
- MAJOR-MID 78%
- RANK-LOWER #3,009
- PHOTO-FINISH Fulton
- NRI-LOW Very Low
- ACT-MODERATE Moderate
- TYPE-LEAD Severe Storm
- VS-ST-BELOW -18%
Nearest declaration peer: Fulton, OH (0 declaration gap)
FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 filing stamps for this county register. Read with this county → · Montana state profile
Judith Basin County among counties with fewer federal records
FEMA declaration records among Judith Basin County and nearest peers by total count
- Los Angeles · largest
Los Angeles · largest
88 declarations
- Fulton · near 9
Fulton · near
9 declarations
- Gallatin · near 9
Gallatin · near
9 declarations
- Hillsdale · near 9
Hillsdale · near
9 declarations
- Judith Basin · this county 9
Judith Basin · this county
9 declarations
- Ujelang · smallest 1
Ujelang · smallest
1 declarations
What this shows Judith Basin County carries 9 FEMA declaration records, ranked 3009 of 3,266 counties in this registry.
Judith Basin County versus quieter counties in this dataset
Judith Basin County among lower-declaration counties nationally
FEMA disaster declarations, all-time · Judith Basin County
9 8th percentile higher than 8% of 3,266 counties
Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more counties. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source FEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 · 2026-08-25
Judith Basin County's FEMA Risk Index score
Which hazard drives modeled loss here?
FEMA's modeled annual dollar loss for Judith Basin County is led by Riverine Flooding (about $1.7M Expected Annual Loss, Historical Loss Ratio Very High), while Wildfire carries the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Low). EAL and risk score use different inputs; they need not agree.
Source: FEMA National Risk Index (December 2025 release) - Expected Annual Loss vs composite risk rating by hazard.
What does Judith Basin County's hazard record show?
FEMA National Risk Index
FEMA's National Risk Index places this county in the low end of the national distribution, composite score 5.5/100 (Very Low). Expected Annual Loss is rated Very Low (roughly $3.4M in annualized losses). Two modifiers shape how that exposure becomes real-world harm here: social vulnerability (Relatively Low) and community resilience (Relatively Moderate). Even the county's top-rated hazard, Wildfire, only reaches Relatively Low on FEMA's scale, none of the 18 modeled hazards stand out here. FEMA's modeled frequency puts that hazard at roughly once every 2,790 years here.
Reading the federal records together
No paid-claim row for this county appears in the NFIP county table used by PlainHazard. That absence is not evidence that flooding never occurred: the register observes claims under federal flood-insurance policies, not uninsured losses, emergency reports, or every flood outside the program. The FEMA declaration history below is therefore the available federal-action record on this page.
Start with the state benchmark: a Montana county averages 11.0 federal declaration records, while Judith Basin County has 9. The gap is 18% below that mean. Fewer entries indicate a quieter history of recorded federal actions, not immunity from a hazard and not a prediction about what happens next.
51 /100
Historical Activity Index
High historical activity
Judith Basin County, MT · PlainHazard-derived composite from federal records
This 0–100 index is an explicit PlainHazard composite from FEMA declaration history only on the county surface (this DB has no county-level NOAA damage row) . It is not FEMA's National Risk Index, not a forecast, and not a safety, insurance, or preparedness rating. Open the calculator · Methodology
FEMA Declarations (1953–present) Low
7/30
9 OpenFEMA declarations, full ingest window (0.4x national county average)
County Disaster Density Moderate
10/25
9 declarations (0.8x state county average of 11)
Major Disaster Share Very High
19/25
7 of 9 declarations are major disasters (78%)
Hazard Diversity Very High
15/20
6 different disaster types declared in Judith Basin County
FEMA NRI 8-hazard radar - Judith Basin County
How to read this radar
Each axis: NRI risk rating (Very Low-Very High) on a 0-100 scale. Rounder = broad exposure; spiky = one or two hazards dominate.
Major Disaster share
78%
Mostly major
NRI risk score
6
Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Per-county per-hazard ratings, December 2025 release
How often does each hazard strike Judith Basin County?
FEMA's National Risk Index models a historical event count and an annualized frequency for each hazard type. Most hazards are expressed as modeled occurrences per year; FEMA expresses drought and heat-wave frequency as event-days per year. These modeled frequencies are not forecasts.
| Hazard | NRI Risk Rating | Recurrence |
|---|---|---|
| Wildfire | Relatively Low | roughly once every 2,790 years |
| Cold Wave | Relatively Low | an average of 8.3 times per year |
| Winter Weather | Relatively Low | an average of 46 times per year |
| Landslide | Very Low | an average of 1 time per year |
| Lightning | Relatively Low | an average of 31 times per year |
| Drought | Very Low | 62 modeled event-days per year |
| Avalanche | Very Low | roughly once every 100 years |
| Earthquake | Very Low | roughly once every 1,447 years |
| Hail | Very Low | an average of 1.2 times per year |
| Riverine Flooding | Very Low | roughly once every 5 years |
| Tornado | Very Low | roughly once every 6 years |
| Heat Wave | Very Low | 1.1 modeled event-days per year |
| Ice Storm | Very Low | roughly once every 67 years |
| Strong Wind | Very Low | roughly once every 2 years |
Source: FEMA National Risk Index Modeled annualized frequency; drought and heat wave use event-days/year, December 2025 release
Disaster Types
Severe Storm 3
Biological 2
Straight-Line Winds 1
Hurricane 1
Fire 1
Flood 1
What Severe Storm declarations mean here
Severe Storm is the most frequent declaration type on Judith Basin County's record, 33% of its declarations. In FEMA's vocabulary this covers convective weather: thunderstorm straight-line winds, large hail, and the multi-day outbreaks that often carry embedded tornadoes. Activity is heaviest in spring and summer, though the season varies by region.
These events behave differently from a hurricane on paper. Damage tends to be distributed along a storm track rather than concentrated on a coastline, and a declaration typically follows an outbreak that crossed several counties over a few days, not a single point of impact. Because the qualifying threshold is the cost of uninsured public and individual losses rather than storm intensity, two similar storms can produce a declaration in one year and none in another.
Declaration counts describe past federal action. They are a record of what was declared, not a forecast of future hazard probability.
Declaration Types
What DR / EM / FM mean
FEMA categorizes declarations as Major Disasters (DR), Emergencies (EM), or Fire Management Assistance (FM).
Major Disaster - 7 77.8%
of all 9 declarations
Emergency - 2 22.2%
of all 9 declarations
FEMA Declarations Timeline
| Year | Declarations | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | |
| 2024 | 1 | |
| 2020 | 2 | |
| 2011 | 1 | |
| 2005 | 1 | |
| 2000 | 1 | |
| 1997 | 1 | |
| 1975 | 1 | |
Disaster Declarations
How the 9 FEMA declarations break into federal action codes (DR / EM / FM). Same DISTINCT grain as the table below.
Download these 9 declarations as CSV . FEMA source data is public domain; our derived presentation is CC0.
| DR# | Title | Type | Incident | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4902 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS | DR | Straight-Line Winds | 2026-04-07 |
| 4801 | SEVERE WINTER STORM AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2024-07-18 |
| 4508 | COVID-19 PANDEMIC | DR | Biological | 2020-03-31 |
| 3476 | COVID-19 | EM | Biological | 2020-03-13 |
| 1996 | SEVERE STORMS AND FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 2011-06-17 |
| 3253 | HURRICANE KATRINA EVACUATION | EM | Hurricane | 2005-09-13 |
| 1340 | WILDFIRES | DR | Fire | 2000-08-30 |
| 1183 | SEVERE STORMS,ICE JAMS, SNOW MELT, FLOODING | DR | Severe Storm | 1997-07-25 |
| 472 | RAINS, SHOWMELT, STORMS & FLOODING | DR | Flood | 1975-06-28 |
Storm Events in Montana
Statewide NOAA context only. PlainHazard does not currently attribute these state totals to Judith Basin County.
| Storm Type | Events | Fatalities | Injuries | Property Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High Wind | 3,735 | 1 | 2 | $5.3M |
| Thunderstorm Wind | 2,396 | 5 | 24 | $15.1M |
| Hail | 2,015 | 0 | 0 | $4.1M |
| Winter Storm | 1,502 | 13 | 18 | $11.2M |
| Heavy Snow | 796 | 5 | 3 | $143.0K |
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database State-level aggregated data, 2015-2025
FEMA National Risk Index
Overall Risk
Very Low
Score: 5.5/100
Expected Annual Loss
Very Low
$3.4M/year
Social Vulnerability
Relatively Low
Community Resilience
Relatively Moderate
Hazard Risk Breakdown
Wildfire Relatively Low
Cold Wave Relatively Low
Winter Weather Relatively Low
Landslide Very Low
Lightning Relatively Low
Drought Very Low
Avalanche Very Low
Earthquake Very Low
Hail Very Low
Riverine Flooding Very Low
Tornado Very Low
Heat Wave Very Low
Ice Storm Very Low
Strong Wind Very Low
Source: FEMA National Risk Index (NRI) Ratings reflect relative scores among all US counties. Data: hazards.fema.gov/nri
The model's sharpest exposure here: Wildfire
Wildfire risk in the model reflects fuel, terrain, weather and how much development sits in the wildland-urban interface. It is one of the few hazards where the exposure is materially changed by land management and building choices, not only by where the county happens to be.
Worth noting for Judith Basin County: the model and the federal record do NOT point at the same hazard. Wildfire carries the highest modeled rating (Relatively Low), while the county's declaration history is led by Severe Storm. That is not a contradiction, the two measure genuinely different things. Declarations record federal ACTION, which requires damage costly enough to exceed state and local capacity; the Risk Index models EXPECTED annual loss across all 18 hazards whether or not any declaration ever followed. A hazard can be the county's largest modeled exposure and never once have driven a declaration.
National Risk Index ratings are modeled estimates of expected annual loss, not predictions of what will happen in any given year.
Data-matched county comparisons
Judith Basin County's closest FEMA peer: Crawford County, IL
Comparisons use published FEMA declaration fields plus the National Risk Index composite for Judith Basin County. Record similarity, not a safety rating.
Closest declaration profiles
Judith Basin County shows 9 FEMA declarations, led by Severe Storm.
Similar Major-disaster share
Judith Basin County: 7 of 9 of its declarations are Major.
Similar modeled NRI score
Judith Basin County: NRI composite 5.5 (Very Low).
How these peers are chosen
Cohort: Published U.S. county equivalents outside the source state or territory. Each metric keeps six ETL candidates; three unique destinations are shown after de-duplicating across axes. Declaration-volume ranking combines count and Major-disaster share and prefers a different leading incident type; Major-share ranks the Major fraction adjusted for volume; NRI ranks the modeled composite score only.
Retained FEMA snapshot feed for Judith Basin County - capture-dated entries only.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by NRI score & FEMA declaration volume
Two PlainHazard-derived comparison paths for Judith Basin County: nearest out-of-state National Risk Index composite and nearest FEMA declaration count (floor ≥5 records). Record similarity only, not a forecast of the next hazard.
Similar NRI composite
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA NRI score. This county: 5.5 (Very Low).
Similar declaration volume
Nearest out-of-state counties by FEMA declaration count. This county: 9. NRI peers are excluded so the two link sets stay distinct.
Further reading for this county
Understanding disaster data
FEMA's National Risk Index flags Wildfire as the top modeled exposure here (Relatively Low); the guide explains how that model differs from declaration counts.
More PlainHazard guides
- Most disaster-prone counties - U.S. counties ranked by FEMA declaration totals.
- Understanding disaster data - declarations vs storm events vs NRI scores.
- Preparing for natural disasters - household checklist (not county-specific advice).
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most common disaster type in Judith Basin County?
The most common disaster type in Judith Basin County is Severe Storm, with 3 declarations. Other disaster types include Biological (2), Straight-Line Winds (1), Hurricane (1).
How does Judith Basin County's FEMA declaration record compare with the Montana average?
The typical Montana county has 11.0 FEMA declaration records; Judith Basin County has 9, or 18% fewer. Against the national county mean of 20.7, this county's total is 57% lower. The comparison is historical and says nothing about the probability of a future event.
How many major FEMA disaster declarations has Judith Basin County received?
Judith Basin County has received 7 major disaster declarations, representing 78% of all 9 disaster declarations.
Does FEMA's top risk-rated hazard match the highest Expected Annual Loss in Judith Basin County?
No. In Judith Basin County, Wildfire has the highest National Risk Index rating (Relatively Low), while Riverine Flooding leads Expected Annual Loss at about $1.7M. FEMA's risk score and dollar-loss model use different inputs, so the leaders often differ.
What was the worst year for disasters in Judith Basin County?
The most active year for disaster declarations in Judith Basin County was 2020, with 2 declarations. The county has FEMA disaster data spanning 1975 to 2026.
What is the FEMA National Risk Index score for Judith Basin County?
According to the FEMA National Risk Index, Judith Basin County, Montana has an overall risk score of 5.5 out of 100 (Very Low). On social vulnerability the county rates Relatively Low; on community resilience, Relatively Moderate. The Expected Annual Loss (EAL) score is Very Low, representing $3.4M in annualized losses.
Which natural hazard poses the greatest risk to Judith Basin County?
Based on FEMA NRI data, the highest-risk natural hazard in Judith Basin County as of the latest release is Wildfire (risk rating: Relatively Low). Other significant hazards include Cold Wave (Relatively Low) and Winter Weather (Relatively Low). FEMA's modeled event frequency puts wildfire here at roughly once every 2,790 years. These scores are based on FEMA's analysis of historical event frequency, exposed assets, and community vulnerability.
Data Sources & Methodology
Disaster declaration data comes from the FEMA OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries v2 API, which includes all federally declared disasters, emergencies, and fire management assistance grants.
Storm event data is sourced from the NOAA Storm Events Database (2015-2025), which tracks significant weather events including thunderstorms, tornadoes, floods, and winter storms.
This data is provided for informational purposes only. FEMA disaster declarations represent federal response actions and may not capture all local emergencies or weather events.
FEMA OpenFEMA declarations + NRI for Judith Basin County · vintage 2026-08-25 · Methodology · Montana profile · Verify with FEMA OpenFEMA · Verify with NOAA Storm Events