January 2026 was Denmark’s ‘coldest for 16 years’

Not since 2010 has Denmark experienced such a cold January as the one just passed, according to the Danish Meteorological Agency (DMI).

The average temperature for the month was minus 0.6 degrees Celsius, well below the norm.

“We have to go back 16 years to find a January that was colder than this one,” Frans Rubek, a climatologist at the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), told news wire Ritzau.

“That was January 2010, which was considerably colder than now. Back then, temperatures dropped to below minus three degrees,” Rubek said.

January’s ‘average’ temperature in Denmark, based on recordings from the period 1991–2020, is 1.6 degrees, meaning last month was 2.2 degrees colder than normal.

Persistent cold weather of the type Denmark is currently experiencing has become increasingly rare over time.

All-time records show that January 2026 does not even rank among the ten coldest on record, however.

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“And if we look at the coldest January ever measured since records began around 150 years ago, we have to go back to January 1942. That month averaged below minus six degrees,” Rubek said.

The climatologist stressed that the recent cold month is not in any way a counter-indication for global warming.

“It is simply a sign that the weather is chaotic and fluctuates,” he says.

“We could certainly experience a very cold winter again, meaning icy winter with a white Christmas and everything. It’s just becoming rarer and rarer,” he added.

“By contrast, we are more often seeing high temperatures. The warmest January on record was only six years ago, with an average temperature of over five degrees. That is entirely different from what we have just experienced [last month],” he said.