DETROIT (WWJ) – Just a couple weeks ago Metro Detroit temperatures were flirting with dipping below zero.
On Wednesday, temperatures were flirting with the 60-degree mark, continuing what has been an unseasonably warm start to January. In fact, we hit 60 degrees at Detroit Metro Airport in Romulus on Wednesday, according to AccuWeather meteorologist Brian Thompson.
So far in the first few days of the New Year, we're 14 degrees above average, Thompson told WWJ's Tony Ortiz on "Weather Wednesday."
"A lot of that is due to how warm it's been at night," Thompson said. "But today just probably going to make that number even bigger as temperatures got close to 60 this afternoon."
Thompson later told WWJ the 60-degree recording at DTW came close to breaking the record for warmest day recorded on Jan. 4 – 61 degrees in 1997.
Thompson says days in the 50s are "not terribly uncommon" in January.
While we didn't see any days in the 50s each of the last two years, Thompson says nine of the past 15 years did. And seven of the 15 years had three or more days in the 50s.
We even hit 60 three times in January during that span, according to Thompson.
"So when you crunch the numbers, the average number of 50-degree-plus days in January is 2.1. So it's not really all that uncommon to see these January thaws," he said.
As nice as it's been to start 2023, Thompson says there's "certainly some chillier air coming in for the next few days."
High temperatures are expected to be in the high 30s the rest of the week and into the weekend, according to Thompson, but that's still above average.
"We don't see any repeats of what we had around Christmas with that arctic cold, at least in the near future," Thompson said.
