Since it’s the shortest day of the year you would think it would be the middle of the col season, as the days get longer after.
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Seasonal lag.
The atmosphere is actually pretty complicated and chaotic, but at its core atmospheric phenomenon (like temperature) are determined by energy inputs. One of the major players in determining the temperature is the ocean.
The sun provides energy to the earth, and much of that energy is transferred into the atmosphere–so the sun (and thus the amount of sunlight, and thus the length of the day) does play a significant role. But water retains heat very well and lets it out slowly, so even as the days get shorter, the ocean is still releasing heat back into the atmosphere. It takes a while for this giant store of heat to run out, so there’s a bit of lag between when the days are shortest and when the temperature is coldest.
Then, when the days start to lengthen again, the ocean sucks up a lot of that heat–so even with longer days, the temperature doesn’t really begin to rise much until the ocean temperature does.
The result is a seasonal cycle that’s just a bit off from the daylight cycle.
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