How cold has it been?

 

A frigid winter's morning in suburban Washington, D.C.

This winter has easily been one of the coldest in recent memory across the DMV (DC, Maryland and Virginia). Both December 2025 and January 2026 were more than four degrees colder than average in the nation’s capital for the first time in 15 years. DC’s longest stretch of consecutive subfreezing temperatures in more than 30 years also occurred.

DC’s signature stretch of cold weather this winter was the nine days that temperatures remained below freezing (January 24 – February 1). That was DC’s longest such stretch since a 10-day streak in December 1989, according to NOAA.

What also made this nine-day period of unusual cold even more extreme was the high impact winter storm on January 25. A total of 6.9” of snow and sleet accumulated at National Airport and 7.8” at Dulles Airport. Totals close to double that occurred in parts of the DMV. That combined with the prolonged period of subfreezing temperatures quickly turned the snow and sleet into a thick layer of ice or “snow-crete” as it was dubbed. Winds also gusted to at least 30 mph on seven of the nine subfreezing days, making wind chills even more dangerous.

The unusual cold has lingered into this month with the first nine days of February finishing an incredible 12.1° colder than average in Washington, D.C. In fact, the first eight days of February were part of an unusually cold 16-day stretch in the nation’s capital. DC’s average temperature (combining daily high and low temperatures) for the period of January 24 – February 8, 2026 was 23.1°.

The fact such a cold stretch occurred in the nation’s capital this year without any single-digit temperatures underscores how rare single-digit temperatures have become in Washington, D.C. (with none since December 2022).