US, world set new summer heat records

A view of a thermometer that shows 128 degrees Fahrenheit at Furnace Creek Visitor Center in Death Valley National Park of California, United States on August 2, 2026. — A view of a thermometer that shows 128 degrees Fahrenheit at Furnace Creek Visitor Center in Death Valley National Park

(Image credit: Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu / Getty Images)

What happened

Europe’s Copernicus climate service on Wednesday reported that August was tied for the hottest month ever recorded on Earth, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the U.S. also experienced its hottest summer “in the 132-year record.” The average temperature in the 48 contiguous states was 74.37 degrees Fahrenheit from June to August, 0.4 degrees “hotter than during the peak of the devastating Dust Bowl in 1936” and 3.5 degrees above the 20th-century average, The Associated Press said.

The Earth “cooked” due to the “dangerous double whammy of human-caused climate change and a supersized El Niño,” the AP said. America’s “unhappy trifecta: the warmest August, warmest summer, and warmest calendar year to date,” was “set by unusually big margins,” Yale Climate Connections said. The summer saw a “staggering 1,541 record monthly highs set or tied nationally,” said CNN. “Normal conditions were observed” only in “pockets of the Midwest and northern Plains,” said CBS News.

Highs in September are “favored to be above average” across the lower 48 states, said NOAA. The “Godzilla El Niño” has already boosted the oceans to record temperatures, The New York Times said, and that “extra warmth” will “spread to the rest of the planet in the months ahead, making the globe’s average temperatures likely to break more records through the end of the year and into 2027.”

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.