On January 16th we crossed a milestone: the average High from December 1, 2020 through January 16, 2021 was 1°C. That made this the warmest December 1 through January 16 on record, going back to 1880.
The warmest December 1 through January 15th is held by the winter of 2011-2012, but its temperatures dropped in mid-January which let 2020-2021 take over the top spot starting on the 16th.
Here's the horserace of how 2020-2021 took over the top spot. If you are viewing this in the future the chart will show where the temperatures for January ended up, but as of January 16th the Highest wre the warmest and the Lows were in the #3 spot.
The "X°C above the 20th century average" in these charts is a little hard to explain, because it's annualized over an entire year, even though here we are only talking about 1.5 months of data. Possibly the easiest way to explain it is that in 2020, the temperatures for the entire calendar year added up to 1°C warmer than the 20th century average. And now just for December 2020 + January 2021 the temperatures have also added up to 1°C, but this only took two months.
There's still plenty of winter left for the winter of 2020-2021.
Going back to November through mid-January the Highs ranks as the 9th warmest, with the Lows as the 8th warmest. But if you happen to be looking at this chart in March then you will be able to see the whole history of the winter.
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