What is not mentioned in the article, is that January in Alaska is usually very cold, temperatures around 100 below. It has been the opposite this Jamuary, and all winter mostly.
Alaska has had one low pressure system after another come through. The highs that normally bring extreme cold out of Siberia and the North Pole have been bypassing us. The ice in the Arctic is breaking records this January for, not its thickness, but its thinness.
The average low January temperature for Barrow, Alaska which is probably the northernmost city is -29 F.