Print edition: 
WASHINGTON — The Midwest and northern United States are likely to get a warmer winter, while the Southeast can expect just the opposite: cooler and wetter conditions.
In Thursday's winter outlook, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says an El Nino weather event — warming in parts of the Pacific that affects weather worldwide — will be a major player in America's winter temperatures.
Forecasters predict warmer than usual temperatures will reach a swath from Washington to Michigan, dipping south to central New Mexico. Alaska also has a higher chance of warmer temperatures.
They also say cooler temperatures are expected from southern Texas to the Mid-Atlantic and in Hawaii.
Other places, such as the Northeast and California, can go any which way on temperatures.
The El Nino will play a big role in helping some drought-parched regions, said Mike Halpert, deputy director of NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. Forecasters said there is a significantly higher probability of wetter winters for Texas, Florida and California and the southern parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.
Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest and part of the Midwest from Michigan to Arkansas are more likely to be drier than normal because of fewer storms across the Appalachian Mountains, Halpert said.
Halpert said the El Nino is currently weak but forecast to strengthen to a moderate-sized weather variation in the next few weeks. The El Nino not only influences the forecast but it gives forecasters more confidence that what they predict will come true, he said.
NOAA also announced on Thursday that globally September was the second warmest month in 130 years of recordkeeping, just behind 2005.
