December settles the deep cold over Montana — short days, subzero nights, and the rivers and lakes freezing hard, broken only by a thawing Chinook off the Front. Wintering eagles concentrate on the open water, the Christmas Bird Counts take the season's measure, and the long, dark, clear nights make for some of the finest stargazing of the year.
Week by week in December
December 3–9
- Christmas Bird Count season begins — birders fan out across Montana to tally chickadees, eagles, rough-legged hawks, and wintering waterfowl.
- Cut Christmas tree season opens — permits draw families into the national forests to cut a Douglas-fir or subalpine fir from the snowy woods.
- Orion climbs the southeast in the early evening, ringed by the brilliant Winter Hexagon of bright stars under the cold, clear December sky.
December 10–16
- The Geminid meteor shower peaks around December 14 — the year's richest and most reliable, a meteor or more a minute from a dark Montana site.
- Bohemian waxwings work the mountain-ash and crabapples in town, and in an irruption year redpolls and pine grosbeaks crowd the feeders.
- Leave snow banked over crowns and garlic as insulation, and gently knock heavy wet snow off arborvitae and evergreens to prevent splitting.
December 17–23
- The winter solstice brings Montana's longest nights, with the winter Milky Way arching overhead and Orion standing due south by late evening.
- Rough-legged hawks and the occasional snowy owl hunt the open plains, and snow buntings swirl over the stubble like blowing snow.
- Indoor holiday markets add evergreen wreaths and boughs to the storage vegetables, ranch beef, honey, and huckleberry preserves.
December 24–31
- Feeders draw chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, and juncos through the deep cold — keep them full and a heated birdbath open when birds need them most.
- On the coldest, clearest nights, Montana's high latitude often catches the aurora borealis glowing low along the northern horizon.
- Wind-sculpted Rocky Mountain junipers hold blue-green needles and frosted cones on the dry breaks, while bare cottonwoods reveal old nests in the galleries.
Birds This Month
December birding in Montana is a winter affair of open water, feeders, and open country, and it is Christmas Bird Count season, when birders fan out across the state to tally the winter avifauna. Where the rivers stay open below the dams on the Missouri and Yellowstone, bald and golden eagles, common goldeneye, common mergansers, and lingering mallards and Canada geese concentrate on the unfrozen stretches.
The open plains belong to the Arctic and hardy residents: rough-legged hawks on the fence posts, northern shrikes hunting from shelterbelts, snowy owls in invasion winters, and swirling flocks of snow buntings, horned larks, and gray partridge over the stubble, with sharp-tailed grouse roosting in the snow. Feeders and conifers draw black-capped and mountain chickadees, nuthatches, downy and hairy woodpeckers, juncos, and, in an irruption year, Bohemian waxwings, redpolls, pine and evening grosbeaks.
This month's tip: join or follow a local Christmas Bird Count to see the winter birds and contribute to long-running data, scan the open river stretches for concentrating eagles and goldeneye, and keep feeders full and a heated birdbath open through the deep cold when birds depend on them most.
What's Blooming
Nothing blooms outdoors in a Montana December — the plains and foothills are frozen hard under snow, and the first sagebrush buttercup and prairie crocus of spring are three months off. The dormant landscape's beauty is in winter structure: the silver-gray of big sagebrush on the wind-scoured flats, the cured tawny bunchgrasses standing through the drifts, and the bright red stems of red-osier dogwood in the river draws against the snow.
The persistent fruits provide the only color and the winter larder for the birds: the red hips of wild rose, the orange clusters of mountain-ash drawing waxwings, the blue-frosted cones of Rocky Mountain juniper on the breaks, and the dark chokecherries and buffaloberries clinging in the shelterbelts. Indoors, this is the peak of amaryllis and forced-paperwhite season, and the long evenings when Montana gardeners pore over seed catalogs and plan the short, intense season still months away. The resin scent of a fresh-cut Douglas-fir or subalpine fir is the season's signature.
Garden This Month
December gardening in Montana happens at the kitchen table. The beds are frozen and snow-covered from the Flathead to the eastern breaks, so this is the heart of the planning season: order seed early — especially the short-season and cold-hardy varieties a 90-to-120-day Montana season demands — sketch next year's layout, inventory and test stored seed, and check stored squash, potatoes, and onions for rot. It is also a good time to plan windbreak plantings and the cold frames and low tunnels that stretch the short growing season.
Leave the snow where it falls over perennial beds, strawberries, and garlic — across the cold plains it is the single best insulation a garden gets, holding soil temperatures steady and shielding crowns from the cruel freeze-thaw a midwinter Chinook can bring, when temperatures swing forty degrees in an afternoon and bare the soil to a hard refreeze. Knock heavy, wet snow gently off evergreen branches and arborvitae to prevent breakage and splitting, but leave the dry, fluffy stuff in place as protection.
Zone 3b (high plains & cold valleys): the garden is fully dormant under deep snow — leave the drifts piled over crowns and garlic as insulation, the best protection a garden gets here. This is pure planning time: order short-season seed early before the northern varieties sell out, and dream the next season's beds.
Zone 4a (central & eastern plains): nothing to plant outdoors — inventory and order seed, sharpen and oil tools, and make sure snow and mulch still shield garlic and marginal perennials from the freeze-thaw a December Chinook can bring to the Front.
What's at the Farmers Market
December's Montana markets are indoor winter and holiday markets in Missoula, Bozeman, Helena, Great Falls, and the Flathead, plus on-farm stores carrying the durable harvest: storage potatoes, carrots, beets, parsnips, onions, leeks, garlic, cabbage, and winter squash cured in fall and keeping for months, with stored apples from the valley orchards.
The pantry staples the state grows anchor the tables year-round — wheat flour, Montana lentils, dry peas, and dry beans, and the year's honey. This is strong season for ranch-direct Montana beef and lamb, and the holiday markets add evergreen wreaths and boughs, jarred huckleberry and chokecherry preserves, eggs, and cold-hardy greens from heated hoop houses. Store roots in a cool, dark, humid spot, keep squash cool and dry and apples cold and humid, and keep onions and garlic dry and airy — handled right, the fall harvest carries clear through the deepest Montana cold.
Night Sky This Month
December gives Montana the longest nights of the year and, on clear evenings, some of its finest stargazing — cold, dry, transparent air and the brilliant winter sky at its peak, anchored by the Geminid meteor shower around December 14, the year's richest and most reliable shower. From a dark site the Geminids can produce a meteor or more a minute, and few skies frame them better than the open plains of the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, the Missouri Breaks, and the high Centennial Valley; Glacier National Park, an International Dark Sky Park, is snowbound but extraordinary if you can reach a viewpoint.
The winter sky dominates: Orion stands due south by late evening with his belt pointing down to brilliant Sirius and up to orange Aldebaran in Taurus beside the Pleiades, all ringed by the great Winter Hexagon of bright stars. The faint winter Milky Way arches overhead. Montana's high latitude keeps the aurora borealis possible on active nights, low in the north.
Exact planet positions and this year's Geminid-peak details change yearly — the printable Montana night-sky guide lists the dates, the moon phase, and the darkest accessible sites near you.
Butterflies & Pollinators
There are no butterflies flying in a Montana December — the whole state lies frozen and snow-blown, and the butterfly year is at its deepest, most hidden point. Every species is locked in winter dormancy in its chosen form, scattered across the landscape. The mourning cloaks, tortoiseshells, and commas that overwinter as adults are wedged behind the loose furrowed bark of cottonwoods and aspens in the river bottoms and tucked into woodpiles, their natural antifreeze carrying them through subzero spells so they can fly first over the melting snow of March. The fritillaries wait as first-instar caterpillars deep in the prairie thatch, the western tiger swallowtails and Weidemeyer's admirals as chrysalids fastened to willow and chokecherry twigs in the canyons, and the alpine Rocky Mountain parnassians as eggs under the deep snowpack of Glacier's high meadows, insulated from the worst of the cold. This is the season to plan a Montana butterfly garden — native milkweed, blanketflower, lupine, and rabbitbrush pay off in nectar and host plants when the warmth finally returns.
What to plant for them is in the Montana native plants guide
Trees This Month
Montana's trees are fully dormant in December, and the snow defines them. In the northwest mountains the evergreens — Douglas-fir, Engelmann spruce, subalpine fir, western redcedar, lodgepole, and whitebark pine — hold deep snow on their boughs, the bare gray spires of needle-shed western larch standing leafless among them until spring. The foothill ponderosa pines, the state tree, wear their long needles and orange plated bark above the drifts.
On the plains, trees cluster along water and in planted shelterbelts: the massive, deeply furrowed plains cottonwoods of the Yellowstone and Missouri galleries stand bare and silver, beside the bright stems of red-osier dogwood. The dry breaks and coulees belong to the wind-sculpted Rocky Mountain junipers, holding their blue-green needles and frosted cones through the cold. This is also the season of the cut Christmas tree, with permits drawing families into the national forests to cut a Douglas-fir or subalpine fir from the snowy woods — a deep-rooted Montana winter tradition.
Weather & Daylight
Across Montana, a typical December day averages a high near 31°F and a low near 13°F, with about 1.2 inches of precipitation — statewide averages from the 1991–2020 U.S. climate normals.
Deep winter returns, 31F days and 13F nights biting hard, short daylight wrapped in a still, frosty quiet.
| Average high | 31°F |
|---|---|
| Average low | 13°F |
| Precipitation | 1.2 in |
| Sunrise (mid-month) | 8:00 MT |
| Sunset (mid-month) | 16:33 MT |
Figures are statewide averages over the 1991–2020 U.S. climate normals; local conditions vary with elevation and distance from the coast. Sunrise and sunset are computed for a midstate point on the 15th (MT).
Next month's version of this page, by email
One short note when Montana's next month turns — what's arriving, blooming, and worth a night outside.
Go deeper with the Montana guides
The complete Montana birding, native-plant, and night-sky references — or the whole year, week by week, in one book.
Same month elsewhere: December in Nebraska · December in Nevada · December in New Hampshire