CHEYENNE - After a slow start this season, mountain snowpack in much of the state seems to be on the rebound, thanks in part to a number of significant winter storms.

"We've gained quite a bit of ground," Wyoming State Climatologist Steve Gray said. "Across many of the basins we've had between a 5 and 15 percent gain over the last several weeks."

The snowpack is strongest in northwest Wyoming. The mountains around Yellowstone National Park and Jackson are at or slightly above historical averages, and the snow there is relatively wet.

Grand Targhee Resort, on the western slope of the mountains, has been in the path of several recent storms. Nearly 3 feet of snow fell between Christmas and New Year's Day, and almost 20 inches of snow fell since last Friday.

"The last few weeks have been extraordinary as far as consistent and plentiful snowfall," resort spokeswoman Susie Barnett-Bushong said.

The Big Horn Mountains in north-central Wyoming are also faring well, with snowpack at roughly 80 to 100 percent of historical averages.

Likewise, the Sierra Madre and Medicine Bow mountains in south-central Wyoming are at roughly 90 to 100 percent of average at many measurement sites. Levels in the nearby Laramie Range are around 70 to 80 percent of average.

As an added bonus, south-central Wyoming is prone to late-season snow showers that could make up even more ground as the season continues.

The Platte River drainage in eastern Wyoming is seeing its first near-average snow accumulation for early January in several years. The drainage feeds reservoirs, farms, ranches and communities in eastern Wyoming, and has been locked in several years of drought. The snowpack there is around 90 percent of average.

"After seven or eight years of drought, getting back up to historical averages seems like a pretty important milestone," Gray said.

The news isn't as good in some parts of the state.

For example, snowpack in the Wind River Range in central Wyoming is only 60 to 70 percent of average. That's a slight increase from about three weeks ago, but still well below expectations.

Northeastern Wyoming is also struggling. Snow levels in the Black Hills are around 50 percent of average. Without more accumulation, farms, ranches and communities will suffer, as will downstream water consumers in the Dakotas.

Garrett Smith, a truck driver who moves cattle and hay around eastern Wyoming, said some ranchers there are already moving cattle to sale barns in anticipation of another dry summer.

"If we don't get that snowpack, the recharge on our aquifers really suffers and the winter recreation doesn't do very well," added Nels Smith, Garrett's father and a former speaker of the state House of Representatives who lives in Beulah in Crook County.

Forecasters at the national Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Md., are calling for continued wet weather in western Wyoming, and "normal" conditions in the rest of the state over the next three months.

A mild La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific is creating increased precipitation in the northwestern United States, including western Wyoming, said Chad Hahn, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Cheyenne.

Reach capital bureau reporter Jared Miller at (307) 632-1244 or at jared.miller@trib.com.