USGS LiDAR progress in Montana 2026-04-22 - more LiDAR elevation source data
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Glenn Borkenhagen
Apr 29, 2026, 11:39:27 AMApr 29
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Greetings to MAGIP -
The USGS recently released some more aerial LiDAR point cloud (LPC) and original product resolution (OPR) bare-earth digital-elevation-model (DEM) tiles for Montana.
The new releases seem to be coming several times per month, rapidly filling in the missing areas across the state.
New coverage is of a bit over 3,000 square miles mainly in Valley County, with small adjacent areas in Garfield and McCone counties. With this release it appears that USGS LiDAR now covers all of Valley County outside the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. The communities of Opheim, Glentana, St. Marie, and Fort Peck are covered in this release, along with a portion of the Glasgow Valley County Airport (Wokal Field).
A georeferenced PDF map showing the area of the latest releases is available here. The red area on that map was published on Wednesday 22 April 2026.
The data was collected from October 2018 to July 2019. These tiles are Quality Level 2 (QL2) data, the base-level quality typically provided by USGS.
Right now the lighter-green QL2 coverage area does not appear on the images currently provided at The National Map Download and USGS _ LidarExplorer when you click on "Show" but that should change in the next few days.
As of this writing (afternoon of Thursday 23 April), both of the generally easy-to-use sources in the previous paragraph have this new data available. They usually have the data available for downloading soon after release, before it appears on their respective maps.
Also, the data is available from the USGS Rockyweb server (step-by-step instructions are here) and via Amazon Web Services (AWS - step-by-step instructions are here). On Thursday 23 April 2026 both the LPC and OPR data was available via both of those methods.
To facilitate use of those sources -
The project is "MT_DNRCphase1_2018_C21"
The work unit is "MT_DNRCphase1_3_2018", both without the quotes.
Product-level raster (GeoTIFF) one-meter 10-km x 10-km digital elevation models (DEMs) are not yet available for this new data. Generally USGS delays issuing new product-level DEMs until after all LPCs and OPRs in a project are completed and released.
This project is called "2018 DNRC QL2 Phase 1 Lidar" on the US Interagency Elevation Inventory webpage.
Finally, a reminder that if the USGS is not yet providing LiDAR point cloud (LPC) or LiDAR-derived DEM data for your area of interest, the Montana_Lidar_Inventory at the Montana State Library has and offers LiDAR coverage not available from USGS. The Montana Lidar Inventory also provides countywide mosaics as well as derived products such as digital surface models (DSMs - including trees, buildings, etc.), tree-canopy-height models, hillshades, contours, and building footprints depending on the area.
Regards,
Glenn Borkenhagen
Cody, Wyoming
307-272-5044
gl...@inlandgps.com
The USGS recently released some more aerial LiDAR point cloud (LPC) and original product resolution (OPR) bare-earth digital-elevation-model (DEM) tiles for Montana.
The new releases seem to be coming several times per month, rapidly filling in the missing areas across the state.
New coverage is of a bit over 3,000 square miles mainly in Valley County, with small adjacent areas in Garfield and McCone counties. With this release it appears that USGS LiDAR now covers all of Valley County outside the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. The communities of Opheim, Glentana, St. Marie, and Fort Peck are covered in this release, along with a portion of the Glasgow Valley County Airport (Wokal Field).
A georeferenced PDF map showing the area of the latest releases is available here. The red area on that map was published on Wednesday 22 April 2026.
The data was collected from October 2018 to July 2019. These tiles are Quality Level 2 (QL2) data, the base-level quality typically provided by USGS.
Right now the lighter-green QL2 coverage area does not appear on the images currently provided at The National Map Download and USGS _ LidarExplorer when you click on "Show" but that should change in the next few days.
As of this writing (afternoon of Thursday 23 April), both of the generally easy-to-use sources in the previous paragraph have this new data available. They usually have the data available for downloading soon after release, before it appears on their respective maps.
Also, the data is available from the USGS Rockyweb server (step-by-step instructions are here) and via Amazon Web Services (AWS - step-by-step instructions are here). On Thursday 23 April 2026 both the LPC and OPR data was available via both of those methods.
To facilitate use of those sources -
The project is "MT_DNRCphase1_2018_C21"
The work unit is "MT_DNRCphase1_3_2018", both without the quotes.
Product-level raster (GeoTIFF) one-meter 10-km x 10-km digital elevation models (DEMs) are not yet available for this new data. Generally USGS delays issuing new product-level DEMs until after all LPCs and OPRs in a project are completed and released.
This project is called "2018 DNRC QL2 Phase 1 Lidar" on the US Interagency Elevation Inventory webpage.
Finally, a reminder that if the USGS is not yet providing LiDAR point cloud (LPC) or LiDAR-derived DEM data for your area of interest, the Montana_Lidar_Inventory at the Montana State Library has and offers LiDAR coverage not available from USGS. The Montana Lidar Inventory also provides countywide mosaics as well as derived products such as digital surface models (DSMs - including trees, buildings, etc.), tree-canopy-height models, hillshades, contours, and building footprints depending on the area.
Regards,
Glenn Borkenhagen
Cody, Wyoming
307-272-5044
gl...@inlandgps.com
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