FAIRBANKS — No records have been broken and the temperature hasn’t hit 50 degrees below zero at Fairbanks International Airport — not yet at least — but this month will go down as one of the coldest Januarys on record in Fairbanks.

“It’s just been persistent,” meteorologist Scott Berg at the National Weather Service in Fairbanks said of the cold temperatures that have assaulted the Interior for more than a month.

Through Wednesday, this month ranks as the seventh-coldest January since records began in 1904, Berg said. The average temperature for the month was 24.6 below through Jan. 25, which is the coldest average temperature for January since 1971. That year, the average temperature in January was 31.7 below, which ranks second on the list of coldest Januarys. The coldest January on record is 1906, with an average temperature of 36.4 below.

The bad news is, based on the weekend forecast, there’s a good chance January 2012 will crack the top five coldest Januarys before the month is done.

“Conditions are not going to improve between now and end of the month,” Berg said.

Assuming the clouds that have been “insulating” Fairbanks the Past few days move out as forecasters are predicting, there’s a good chance the temperature won’t get above 30 below today or tomorrow and lows are expected to drop down to 45 below tonight and Saturday. Temperatures will moderate slightly beginning Sunday, but the warmest temperature on the weather service’s five-day forecast is still only 15 below.

With an average temperature of 7.9 degrees below zero, January is by far the coldest month of the year in Fairbanks. December is a distant second with an average temperature of 4.1 below and February ranks third with an average temperature of 1.3 below.

While there have been no record-breaking cold snaps, temperatures have been about 15 degrees below normal much of the month, Berg said.

The average high temperature so far this month is 15.5 below and the average low temperature has been 33.6 below. During the past 30 years, the average high for January is 1.1 above and the average low is 16.9 below.

The coldest temperature recorded in January so far is 48 below on Jan. 14 and 15. There have been 12 days when the low temperature at the airport was 40 below or colder, including a six-day-in-a-row stretch from Jan. 13-18, and another seven days when the low was in the 30s below.

There have been only three days when the temperature has climbed above zero at Fairbanks International Airport — Jan. 10-12. There has not been a single day when the low temperature did not fall below zero.

Towing companies and garages in Fairbanks have been swamped with calls to rescue and resuscitate frozen vehicles. Heating oil delivery companies have week-long waiting lists because the demand for heating oil is so high.

As owner of Goldpanner Chevron, Eric Stoner is supposed to benefit from the cold weather. Cold means frozen, dead and broken vehicles, which means business for Stoner.

But listening to him on Thursday, Stoner sounded like a lot of other Fairbanksans.

“All my heaters in my shop are going out,” Stoner said by phone from his Cushman Street garage. “I had Bigfoot (Pumping and Thawing) in here last night thawing pipes because my sewer backed up.

“Everybody’s stuff breaks when it gets this cold, including our wrecker, but I got that fixed,” he said. “It’s hard on everything.”

That includes motivation. The ski trails at Birch Hill Recreation Area and mushing trails at Jeff Studdert Racegrounds have basically been deserted for the past month because of the cold temperatures.

The Nordic Ski Club of Fairbanks has already canceled one Flint Hills Town Series race this month (Jan. 14) and things don’t look good for another race scheduled for Saturday,

competition coordinator John Estle said. In 16 previous years, which covers 65 to 70 Town Series races, the club has postponed only four or five races, he said.

“I don’t remember ever postponing two consecutive Town Series races,” Estle said.

Estle has lived in Fairbanks for 30 years, and he can’t remember a colder January. What sets this month apart is the consistency of the cold.

“Normally in January it’s between zero and 20 below most of the time,” Estle said. “Then it gets real cold for a few days, then it warms up for a days and then it goes back between zero and 20 below.

“This whole winter it has been either 10 or 20 above or 30 or 40 below,” he said. “There’s been no happy middle ground.”

Sprint musher Shannon Erhart, who is president of the Alaska Dog Mushers Association, said it’s been a “depressing” winter, and the last month of cold temperatures has only made it worse.

“First we had no snow, then we got snow and the temperatures dropped,” she said.