States · Montana · Toole County

Sunburst, Montana.

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What it costs per month · Sunburst $2,453/mo

to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,452 (+145%) since Jan 2020.

Monthly payment to buy the typical home

Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.

$500 $1,000 $1,500 $2,000 $2,500 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 2022 2026 Montana $2,453 United States $1,922
$500 $1,000 $1,500 $2,000 $2,500 2002 2010 2018 2026
  • Montana$2,453
  • United States$1,922

Living in Sunburst, Toole County, Montana

Sunburst is a town of 333 people in Toole County. Half its households earn more than $65,938 a year and half less, against $57,731 across Toole County. 86% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 14% are rented. Unemployment in Toole County was 2.4% in August 2026, and the county had 2.0% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Toole County work in schools and health care, then farming.

People 333 in the 2020 census
Household income $65,938 the median, give or take $11,392 · Toole County: $57,731
Unemployment 2.4% Toole County, August 2026; 3.0% a year before
Homes 86% lived in by their owners; 14% rented

Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.

What it’s like

The place. Sunburst is a very small town in Toole County, Montana, where nearly everyone who lives here owns their home. Household incomes run higher than across the county as a whole. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and highs staying just above freezing, while summers are warm, with July the warmest. Rain and melted snow add up to a fairly dry year.

Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by farming, forestry and mining, then government, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Across Toole County, the largest workplaces include Logan Health Shelby, Shelby Elem Schools and Albertsons. Unemployment across the county is lower than it was a year ago, though there are somewhat fewer jobs than the year before, and a fair number of residents work from home.

Things to do. Lake Cut Bank is the one nearby place on record, a lake a longer drive away. It makes an outing for a day of fishing or time by the water, and otherwise this is a quiet small town where the pace of life is slow.

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  • 11%work from home

What people in Toole County work in

  • Schools, hospitals and social care17%
  • Farming, forestry and mining13%
  • Government12%
  • Restaurants, hotels and entertainment11%
  • Shops (retail)11%
  • Transport, warehouses and utilities7%

Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Toole County had 1,758 jobs in 2025, 2.0% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).

Weather through the year

Average daily high and low for each month: coldest in January, 31° and 13°; warmest in July, 80° and 52° 20° 40° 60° 80° J 31° 13° F M A M J J 80° 52° A S O N D
Average daily high and low for each month: coldest in January, 31° and 13°; warmest in July, 80° and 52° 20° 40° 60° 80° J 31° 13° F M A M J J 80° 52° A S O N D

Coldest in January, with highs near 31° and lows near 13°; warmest in July, with highs near 80° and lows near 52°. About 14 inches of rain and melted snow a year.

Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Sunburst East weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).

Largest workplaces in Toole County

  1. Logan Health ShelbyCritical access hospital75FTE
  2. Shelby Elem SchoolsSchool district59FTE
  3. AlbertsonsSupermarkets and other grocery stores37
  4. Somont OilPumping oil and gas wells on a contract basis35
  5. Sunburst K-12 SchoolsSchool district34FTE
  6. A.N. Deringer, Inc. - SweetgrassCustoms brokers29
  7. Logan Health - Shelby Care CenterHomes for the elderly with nursing care24
  8. Shelby H S SchoolsSchool district24FTE

Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 5 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 211 people in all across the county; Sunburst has one of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.

Natural hazards

  1. Cold wavesVery high
  2. Winter weatherRelatively high

FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Sunburst’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.

From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Toole County.

Sunburst home values

Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.

Not enough data to draw this yet.

Market heat, inside the city limits

Homes for sale

Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.

4 6 8 2026 Sunburst 8
4 6 8 2026
  • Sunburst8

Zip codes with a Sunburst address

A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Sunburst — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.

Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.