Gentle Reminder

Today’s 61 degrees (so far!) serves as a gentle reminder of how out of touch Metropolitan Diary can be. See, in particular, today’s “January Lament”: “The weather shows it’s not July/and empathy’s in short supply.”

Has this person ventured outside in, I don’t know, the last 30 days? Because it’s not just today — the Sun reported on the warm weather — this January is one of the top ten warmest ever — back on January 11th:

In Midtown yesterday, it was evident that the recent bout of unusually warm weather is beginning to affect people’s perceptions of winter.

Some wore scarves but not jackets; others discarded all the trappings of the season and simply wore T-shirts.

Not that yesterday was a record breaker for warmth: The mercury in Central Park topped out at 49, 6 degrees above normal but 11 short of the record set in 1876. Monday was the record-setting day, when the temperature climbed to 60 at La Guardia Airport, shattering the record of 50 set in 1998.

. . .

So far this year, temperatures have dipped below freezing only three times, according to the National Weather Service. Normally by January, the jet stream is blowing cold air from Canada through the steel and concrete canyons of the city.

“Typically, by this time of year, things have shifted around where the northern branch of the jet stream has taken over, but that hasn’t happened yet, and it doesn’t look like it will happen soon,” a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, Adrienne Leptich, said.

Instead, warm air from the west and south has kept temperatures high. Warm days are expected for the rest of the week, with the warmest weather coming Friday, when temperatures could reach 60.