New Year's Day weather historically ranges widely, mild temps expected in 2026
New Year’s day kicks off the coldest month of the year, yet the thermometer has told a different story each year.
By News Channel Nebraska
HASTINGS, neb.- New Year’s day kicks off the coldest month of the year, yet the thermometer has told a different story each year.
According to the National Weather Service Hastings Office, January is climatologically the coldest month of the year. However, a look back at the past 125 years shows variability from one year to the next.
In the past 30 years, New Year’s Day high temperatures in Grand Island have ranged from 4 degrees to 61 degrees.
Recorded weather shows the warmest New Year’s Day was 64 degrees in 1939, while the coldest low temperature was -23 degrees in 1974.
However temperatures often fall somewhere in between. Only 15 of the past 125 New Year’s Days recorded high temperatures of 50 degrees or warmer, and there has not been one in more than two decades.
On the opposite end of the thermometer, only 18 New Year’s Days recorded highs of 15 degrees or colder. Three of those occurred within the past eight years — 2018, 2019 and 2022.
Central Nebraska this New Year’s Day can expect mild to cool temperatures ranging from highs in the 50’s to lows in the 20’s.