NYC weather: January was historically dry with below-average temperatures

New York’s Staten Island. Although it’s no secret that winter brings frigid weather, residents of New York City experienced some extremely chilling temps last month.

Following the start of the new year, the city experienced reasonably moderate weather, with a high of 50 degrees maybe giving some people the erroneous impression that the winter would be warmer than usual.

As the forecasts started to warn of Arctic air waves and temperatures fell below average in a matter of days, that realization of mistaken hope would rapidly set in.

These releases of North Pole air caused by disturbances in the polar vortex have thrown New York City into many rounds of frigid temperatures over the past few weeks.

The unpredictable character of temperatures over the past month has been determined by this recurrent pattern of wave after wave.

According to the Staten Island Advance/SILive.com weather station, the low dropped to a freezing 10 degrees on January 21, the coldest day of the year, while the daily high only reached 20 degrees. The very same low occurred the following day; a slight increase in the high took the temperature up to 25 degrees.

According to statistics from 1991 to 2020 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Central Park, these numbers were significantly lower than the average daily high and low for those days, which were approximately 39 and 27 degrees, respectively.

The historical daily high of 39.6 degrees was surpassed by more than 12 degrees on January 29 when temperatures hit a monthly high of 52 degrees.

By the conclusion of the month, highs on 17 of the 31 days fell short of the NOAA-shared daily average high. On the other hand, lows in 20 of January’s 31 days fell short of the daily average lows.

At first, the Climate Prediction Center of the National Weather Service predicted that January would see temperatures throughout New York State that were warmer than usual. However, the Climate Prediction Center released an updated prognosis just as the world rang in the new year, revealing a shift in projection that called for a chance of below-average temperatures in New York City.

The second driest January on record

January was mostly dry, while there was a few inches of snow accumulation over the month. Even though there was some light rain on Friday, this January was really one of the driest in New York City’s history.

On Staten Island, snow is seen covering automobiles and coating sidewalks in this file photo taken on January 19, 2025. As stated by Scott R. Axelrod and the Staten Island AdvanceAxelrod, Scott R.

As previously reported by National Weather Service meteorologist Matthew Wunsch, the city has only gotten 0.45 inches of liquid precipitation before this most recent wet day. According to Wunsch, the city was three inches below its monthly normal as of Thursday morning.

Another National Weather Service meteorologist, Bryan Ramsey, said that Central Park received about 0.16 inches of rain on Friday. With a cumulative monthly precipitation total of just 0.61 inches, January 2025 was ultimately the second driest January in the city’s history.

This most recent record surpasses 1970, which had 0.66 inches of precipitation, although it is less than January 1981, which had only 0.58 inches.