This January was the warmest on record in Seattle. We started to notice a few weeks ago how we haven't had as much rain and how it's been a lot warmer than last year in January. It's definitely been great with highs most days in the upper 40s and lower 50s. It's made the winter a lot easier to handle. The National Weather Service is predicting a warmer, dryer weather through the rest of winter and into early spring, yay!

Here's an excerpt from an article on Komonews.com:

The average temperature was 46.97 degrees -- toppling the record of 46.56 degrees set in 2006, and a full six degrees above the normal average of 40.9 degrees. In fact, it's even warmer than a typical March! (which has an average temperature of 46.2 degrees.)

Persistent El Nino conditions were a factor for most of the month, which typically keeps the Pacific Northwest in a warmer air flow. In addition, an unusually strong and stubborn area of low pressure parked off our coast for several days, streaming warm, moist air from the tropical Pacific into Western Washington.

January 27th's 35 degree low was the only day the temperature dropped to 35 or colder. There were only five days in the month with a low below 40. We also had 9 days at 55 or warmer with a four day string of 59, 60, 57 and 56 degrees between Jan 18-21.