As El Nino Builds, July Tied For World's Hottest On Record, August Running Super Hot, Too

The world tied the record for the hottest July, according
to NOAA. If anything, August might be even 
further above normal as El Nino takes hold

As I noted in a previous post, El Nino is building on climate change to bring the world's temperatures to new heights. 

While we're heading into the last days of August, we see the July data is fully available. 

Data released about a week ago indicated July, 2026 tied with 2024 as the hottest on record. This is according to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.  Since July is normally the world's hottest month of the year, so 2026 and 2024 are the world's hottest month on record. 

The Julys of 2023, 2024 and 2026 were the only Julys that were 1 degree or more Celsius above the pre-industrial average. 

Climate change has been going on for quiet awhile now, it's just accelerating lately.  For instance, the last time the world had a July that was at least a little bit cooler than average was in 1971.  

Land areas in the Northern Hemisphere were easily the hottest on record, breaking the previous 2024 record by 0.12 degrees Celsius, or 0.22 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Hot Oceans

Even more ominously, global ocean temperatures reached a record high for July. About 70 percent of the world is covered by oceans. Heat is released into the atmosphere, where it causes mischief in the form of record heat, droughts, and unusually vicious storms.

Overall, on average, world ocean temperatures peak in the spring, then declines until June, then rise to a secondary peak in early August, then slowly begins to decline again, 

This year, the global average ocean temperature rose rapidly since July, reaching an all time record of 21.1 degrees C as of August 21.  This odd late season increase has almost everything to do with the burgeoning El Nino. But since ocean temperatures were already elevated by climate change, it was easy for the oceans breaking records. 

Relative to average, the warmest places were most of North America, Greenland and Iceland, western Europe, Central Africa, northwest Asia, parts of Russia and Siberia. 

As usual in this climate-changed world, there were few areas that were on the cold side, and most of the "cold" areas were just barely, compared to the 20th century averages. The cool areas were Alaska, the persistent cold blob in the Atlantic south of Iceland, parts of Antarctica, and, marginally, parts of northern and central Europe. 

UNITED STATES

The Lower 48 of the United States had its 
hottest month on record in July. All states
were warmer than average.

In the United States, we had the hottest month on record in the Lower 48. Not just hottest July, ,though the month is usually the hottest of the year.   

Every state in the Lower 48 was warmer than normal, which is an extreme rarity. Even when the Lower 48 has an overall warm month, a few states are at least a little cooler than normal. 

While everyplace was warm, the hottest relative to average were in the central and northern Rockies and in the northern Plains. 

When you add up all the states that were way warmer than normal and sort of warmer than normal, we end up with the hottest month on record for the Lower 48. 

Wyoming had its hottest July on record. Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and North Dakota had their second hottest July on record. A total of 18 states had one of their top ten warmest Julys on record. Vermont had its 31st hottest July on record. 

Overall, the Lower 48 was drier than normal. Typical of summer the wet areas and dry areas were pretest spotty and random. 

Despite the dry theme, there were intense local floods, including in the Texas Hill Country and in the Northeast. 

New England had some of the most extreme disparities in precipitation. Southern New England was wet, with Rhode Island seeing its sixth wettest July on record. By contrast, Maine had its fourth driest July on record. 

Vermont had its 47 driest July out of the past 132 years. 

Meanwhile, August around the world has been running super hot. It's widely expected to be the hottest on record. We'll have updates, of course, when complete data for August becomes available.