Winter 2025–26 in 72 cities: a mild west, and a north-east that ran nearly 3 °C colder than normal

Winter 2025–26 was milder than normal in 46 of the 66 northern-hemisphere cities where our two data sources agree, and colder in 18. Averaged across all of them, December to February finished +0.4 °C against the long-run normal for the same days — but that average hides a winter split in two. Kyiv ran −2.8 °C, Helsinki −2.5 °C and Warsaw −2.3 °C, while Phoenix finished +4.1 °C and Cairo +2.1 °C.

The figures come from OpenWeather’s hourly observation history, aggregated into local days and compared with OpenWeather’s normal for each calendar date, then recalculated with the ERA5 reanalysis against its 2011–2025 average. A city is ranked only when the two anomalies agree to within 1.5 °C — 66 of 72 did.

−2.8 °C

Kyiv, the coldest winter relative to normal

86

frost days in Beijing, out of 90

59

days in Helsinki that never rose above 0 °C

−22.6 °C

lowest reading, Chicago, 23 January

Key findings

• 46 of 66 ranked cities were milder than normal; the average anomaly was +0.4 °C (+0.8 °F).
• Northern and eastern Europe carried the cold: Kyiv, Helsinki, Warsaw, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo averaged −1.7 °C, after a December that had been +2.3 °C on the mild side.
• January was the only month colder than normal on average (−0.5 °C), with 41 of 66 cities below their normal.
• North America was divided: New York ran −2.1 °C and Toronto −1.8 °C, while Phoenix finished +4.1 °C.
• In Europe, 26 cities set their winter low in the four days from 5 to 8 January — Paris among them, at −7.0 °C.

A cold north-east

The coldest winters relative to normal were in the north-east of Europe. Kyiv averaged −4.0 °C against a normal of −1.2 °C, and Helsinki −4.9 °C against −2.5 °C. The cold came late: across those six cities of northern and eastern Europe, December ran +2.3 °C, January −3.3 °C and February −4.3 °C. Helsinki logged 59 ice days — days when the temperature never climbed above freezing — and Kyiv 44. Kyiv’s lowest reading, −22.5 °C on 2 February, came on the same day as Warsaw’s (−18.5 °C).

A mild west and south

Further west and south the season was the reverse. France’s cities averaged +1.0 °C, with most of that coming in February (+2.4 °C on average). Paris finished +1.5 °C and London +1.2 °C. Around the Mediterranean, Rome, Athens, Barcelona, Lisbon, Seville and Istanbul averaged +0.9 °C, and 16 of the 72 cities, including Seville, Rome, Athens, Cairo and Nice, went the whole winter without a frost.

Even the mild half of Europe had one sharp, widespread spell. Between 5 and 8 January, 26 of the 56 European and French cities in the set recorded their lowest temperature of the winter, from London (−3.4 °C) and Paris (−7.0 °C) to Madrid (−2.4 °C) and Milan (−2.8 °C).

North America and East Asia

On the other side of the Atlantic, the north-east was cold and the south-west warm. New York averaged 0.0 °C, 2.1 °C below normal, with its lowest reading of −15.4 °C (4.3 °F) on 8 February. Chicago fell to −22.6 °C (−8.7 °F) on 23 January and Toronto to −21.2 °C a day later. Phoenix, by contrast, spent the winter 4.1 °C above normal, the largest positive anomaly in the set, and even Miami ran −1.2 °C, most of it in a February that finished −3.0 °C.

In East Asia the winter was close to or above normal on average, but still cold in absolute terms: Beijing recorded a frost on 86 of its 90 days and Seoul on 82, both reaching their winter lows around 22–23 January.

The lowest readings

Chicago recorded the lowest temperature in the set, −22.6 °C (−8.7 °F) on 23 January. ERA5, which averages over a grid of about 30 km, can differ from a reading sampled at a city by several degrees on the coldest nights — the table shows both.

Not ranked

Reykjavik, Delhi, Grenoble, Nice, Valletta, Los Angeles are left out of the ranking: OpenWeather and ERA5 disagree on their anomaly by more than 1.5 °C (OpenWeather −3.0 °C, ±0.0 °C, +1.8 °C, +2.3 °C, +3.4 °C, +3.5 °C; ERA5 +0.8 °C, +1.5 °C, −0.4 °C, +0.6 °C, +0.8 °C, +1.3 °C). Both sources’ figures are in the CSV, and the reasons are set out in our methodology.

How to use these figures

The normal is the average of recent years, not a pre-industrial baseline, so a winter that finished close to normal here was close to an already-warm recent average. For how the whole twelve months compared, see the past twelve months in 87 cities. The complete table, with both sources’ values for every city, is in the CSV below.