Earth has hottest August on record
Earth just had the hottest August on record, according to monthly reports from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Service, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA. The Northern Hemisphere experienced its warmest summer (1 June to 31 August 2026), while the Southern Hemisphere had a near-record warm winter.
Global sea surface temperature reached an all-time observed high in August, with El Niño conditions fuelling record temperatures across vast areas of the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. The Arctic and Antarctic each had below-average sea ice extent in August.
El Niño was one of the drivers of the climate in August. It is now firmly established and will intensify into a very strong event in the coming months, with big impacts on rainfall and temperature patterns well into 2027, according to WMO’s latest El Niño Update.
El Niño influenced global tropical cyclone activity in August, as well as heavy rainfall and floods in some countries. Other countries were impacted by drought with El Niño conditions favouring the intensification of seasonal wildfires across Indonesia, as reported by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS).
WMO uses the datasets from Copernicus Climate Change Service, NOAA, NASA (and others) for its State of the Global Climate reports. It will present an update on this year’s climate for COP31 to be held in Antalya, Turkey, in November.
Temperatures
ERA5 data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), showed August was the joint warmest month ever recorded, tied with July 2023. The global average surface air temperature was 1.65°C higher than the estimated pre-industrial baseline.
NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information said the global surface temperature in August 2026 was 2.38°F (1.32°C) above the 20th-century average—the warmest August in the 1850–2026 record. All ten of the warmest Augusts on record have occurred since 2016.
Record-high August temperatures were mainly present across Greenland, Africa, and parts of Europe, Asia, North and South America, the Atlantic, Indian, Southern and Canadian Arctic oceans as well as extensive areas of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean.
August saw the highest daily global SST over the extra-polar ocean ever recorded, at 21.11ºC. They remained exceptionally high across much of the tropical Pacific, where El Niño conditions are present and forecast to further strengthen in the coming months. Around Europe, sea surface temperatures reached record highs for August along the Atlantic coast and in the western Mediterranean, associated with widespread strong or severe marine heatwave conditions.
Precipitation and tropical cyclones
Global tropical cyclone activity was above average in August, producing 19 tropical storms. Of those, five reached hurricane or typhoon intensity, with four attaining major status (Category 3 or higher).
Driven by ongoing El Niño conditions, activity varied by basin. The Atlantic was unusually quiet, producing two weak, short-lived tropical storms. In contrast, warmer waters across the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean fueled the development of eight named storms across the Eastern North Pacific basin. Typhoon Dolphin was the strongest tropical cyclone of the season to make landfall in China.
Western Europe saw further heatwaves in August, continuing an exceptional run of extreme heat that began in May. Much of the region and large parts of central and eastern Europe also saw widespread dryness in August, in some cases persisting since May, with severe drought conditions reported in France, the UK, Hungary, Romania and Serbia. Across the dry regions, major European river flows were exceptionally low, including – from west to east – the Rhine, Danube, Southern Bug and Dnieper experiencing exceptionally low flows.
