Each month, the Climate Prediction Center issues seasonal temperature and precipitation forecasts out a year in the future. With the colder months approaching, it's interesting to see how their winter outlook has evolved over the last few months.

Here's the forecast issued back in the summer for temperature this coming winter. The shaded areas indicate a lean toward a warmer-than-average winter, and the darker the shading, the greater the confidence. In the areas not shaded, there's no lean one way or the other - that is, warmer-than-average, near-average, and colder-than-average are equally likely.

Here's the updated winter outlook issued a few days ago. The area of the warmer-than-average forecast hasn't changed much, but the shading is darker, indicating more certainty in that outcome. This increased confidence stems from the El Nino which will likely persist for the winter - historically, El Nino correlates with warmer winters in the northern U.S., particularly the Northern Plains. Note that we're right on the edge of the shaded region, indicating just a slight lean toward a warmer-than-average winter. Tomorrow night, the winter precipitation outlook.