Moscow is typically cold in January.

Maximum temperatures go down compared to the previous month from -3°C to -5°C. The minimum temperature also goes down from -8°C to -10°C.

Wear your winter warms as it will be cold. To save space, layer, and don’t forget gloves and a scarf.

January is the coldest month in Moscow, here is the comparison with other months:

January weather is still as ok as in December. It’s getting colder in January. From -3°C in the day, the average maximum temperature lowers to -5°C. As January arrives, the amount of rainfall goes down. On average, the rainfall volume decreases from 3 mm to 1 mm. It feels drier, as humidity decreases from 87% to 86%. The average wind speed doesn’t change much during January, staying around 3 m/s. The good news is there are likely to be more sunny days in January, from 0 to 1.

February brings much the same weather, it remains ok.

January is one of the snowiest months in Moscow.

Here’s how January is compared with other months in the amount of snow, total mm:

The climate in Moscow in January has not changed much over the last 43 years.

The average temperature was the lowest in 1987 (+6°C) and the highest in 2024 (+11°C). The driest year was 2014 with only 262 mm of rainfall, and the wettest year was 1980 with 601 mm.

For this page, we’ve looked at the typical weather in Moscow, based on historical hourly weather data from January 1, 1979, to December 31, 2023.

For past dates, we show actual recorded data at the location at that time. Forecasts are based on recorded weather during that day of the year, averaged over the total years for which we have records (unless stated otherwise). The daily temperature is the highest recorded temperature in the shadow during that day.