The cold weather was intense but it ends today for the foreseeable future. The 15 day outlook shows a profound reversal to warmth, with only about 60% of normal HDDs forecast.
The CPC, including the 7 day forecast, shows some of the warmth, and brings us to about normal HDD's through mid month. It's the outlook beyond that point that will take January down.
Last year, January was about average, here's a day by day look at last winter vs this winter so far. Most of the warmth last year was concentrated in OCT-NOV-DEC:
And the 15 day outlook, based on the GFS:
