Greenland's west coast posts warmest January on record

Nuuk: Greenland s capital Nuuk registered its warmest ever January beating a record that stood for 109 years as temperatures soared across the A...

Nuuk: Greenland's capital Nuuk registered its warmest ever January -- beating a record that stood for 109 years -- as temperatures soared across the Arctic island's west coast, the Danish Meteorological Institute said Monday.

While Europe and North America experienced a cold snap in January, Nuuk registered an average monthly temperature of 0.1C (32 Fahrenheit), a whopping 7.8C above the average for the month of January over the last three decades.

That is 1.4 degrees above the previous record for Nuuk from 1917.

On the warmest day in Nuuk in January, the mercury rose to a balmy 11.3C.

From the southern tip of Greenland up the west coast -- a distance of over 2,000 kilometres (1,243 miles) -- the temperature in January set monthly records, DMI said.