The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) doesn’t forecast snowfall amounts. But the federal agency predicts the climate that leads to snow: Colder-than-average temperatures and wetter-than-average conditions.

In the Mountain West, snowfall is expected to be above average in the northern areas, including northwestern Wyoming, most of Idaho, and all of Montana.

But how long the snowpack remains on the ground is harder to predict, said Jon Gottschalck, chief of the operational prediction branch of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

“We expect a lot more changes within the winter across the U.S. this year,” Gottschalck said. “Like cold weeks, warm weeks, as opposed to longer periods that we had last year of just warm and wet.”

Elsewhere in the West, Gottschalck said drought conditions are expected to continue in the southern Rocky Mountains and become more severe across the Southwest through the winter. That means snowfall will likely be below average in southern parts of Nevada, Utah, and Colorado, and across all of New Mexico.

This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.