The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its winter weather outlook Thursday, favoring classic El Niño conditions for Washington state. El Niño is a climate pattern associated with warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. It generally leads to higher chances of warmer temperatures and drier conditions in the Pacific Northwest. In western Washington, NOAA forecasted a high probability of above-normal temperatures and equal chances of below, near or above-normal precipitation. Eastern Washington is slightly more likely to have below-normal precipitation. KING 5 Meteorologist Rich Marriott said this prediction is in line with typical El Niño outlooks for western Washington as there is a stronger correlation between El Niño and temperature versus precipitation in the Pacific Northwest. Read more: https://www.king5.com/article/weather/weather-blog/noaa-winter-weather-outlook-el-nino-washington/281-1702b3f7-108e-4454-a8ff-23731b6459c1