The National Climate Prediction Center has released its Winter Outlook for the United States for the December-through February period. For Maryland, it looks like there are no strong trends toward an unusually mild or ferocious winter. But after a string of mild ones, even a firmly "average" winter could feel pretty, well, wintry.

Here is the climate forecast map for temperature. It shows a strong chance for mild winter temperatures overall across the center of the contiguous states, with the warmest outlook for the central Plains states.

The East Coast shows equal chances for above-or below-normal temperatures. Winter temperatures over the last four winters in Baltimore have averaged a couple of degrees above the long-term (30-year) averages for the area. The coldest winter in the last 30 years for us was in 2002-03, almost 6 degrees below "normal."

That year produced record snowfalls here. No one can forget the four-day blizzard in February of that year.

But to get lots of snow, you need lots of precipitation. And the outlook for the region this winter does not show any clear trends in that department, either. Here's the map.

Once again, the heaviest weather seems destined for the Central Plains, with generally dry conditions across the South, including southeastern Virginia and perhaps part of the Eastern Shore.

Forecasters have an easier time predicting winter weather when there is a strong El Nino or La Nina event underway in the tropical Pacific Ocean. This year, we're looking at neither. It's what they call an ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) Neutral period.

That leaves them with other climate patterns, in the North Atlantic and the Arctic, to guide them.

"These patterns are only predictable a week or two in advance and could persist for weeks at a time," said Michael Halpert, deputy director of NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. "Therefore, we expect variability, or substantial changes in temperature and precipitation across much of the country."

So, while the formal Winter Outlook does not provide much guidance for Maryland, conditions could change as the winter goes by, and we could see some real wintry weather, interrupted by milder fare.

The Winter Outlook does not include snowfall forecasts. But given how little snow we've seen in the past two winters, there would seem to be a good chance we'll see at least more average accumulations this winter. That's around 18 inches for BWI. And that would seem like a lot to plenty of us. I make that prediction based solely on the logic of the "return to the mean," which, simply put, means "Your luck will eventually run out."