The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😜
Here is a new feature for this blog, which I will add daily. This is the latest inciteful Green News Report from my friends Desi Doyen and Brad Friedman at Progressive Voices. Hit ‘continue reading,’ listen, then hit return to see my daily topics:
Main Topic: France’s Heat This Week Was Worse Than a Dire Scenario Imagined For 2050
Dear Diary. During the early 21st century sometimes climate change induced heatwaves can get to such epic proportions that they overshoot predictions. This happened back in the summer of 2010 when Moscow got over 100°F. Now it’s happened in France with temperatures getting above those predicted for the summer of 2050.
This has me worried about any real-world verification for the 2030s and beyond. Could we possibly see maxes in the 120s Fahrenheit or higher across portions of Europe? I fear so, which would kill tens of thousands unless that continent can get air conditioning in all dwellings soon. Perhaps after Heatwave Ember’s damage is accessed the process of putting AC in homes will commence in earnest.
Here are more details from the Washington Post:
France’s heat this week was worse than a dire scenario imagined for 2050
A weather presenter’s prediction aimed to show the dangers of global warming. Temperatures exceeded it Wednesday as France was hotter than Phoenix.
June 25, 2026
High temperatures on Wednesday in France (right) matched or exceeded predictions for a hypothetical heat wave in 2050 (left) in 19 out of 34 locations. Yellow squares indicate where future temperature predictions were matched or exceeded. (Ben Noll/The Washington Post; Meteociel)
By Ben Noll
A deadly and record-breaking heat wave that’s spreading eastward across Europe has revived interest in a hypothetical temperature forecast for August 2050 in France.
The forecast was recorded in 2014 as part of a campaign coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that invited about 60 presenters worldwide to imagine a weather report from the year 2050. In one clip, Évelyne Dhéliat from French television network TF1 presented a hypothetical scenario of high temperatures 36 years into the future — during a heat wave in a warmer climate in 2050.
“What the weather presenters created are only possible scenarios, and not true forecasts. Nevertheless, they are based on climate science, to try to explain to the public what life could be like on a warmer planet,” WMO spokesperson Clare Nullis said in an email to The Washington Post.
One of the maps that Dhéliat shared was lit up in shades of orange, filled with temperature predictions of 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), reaching as high as 43 degrees Celsius (109.4 degrees Fahrenheit).
But it turns out, it didn’t take 36 years for those imagined temperatures to be reached — and even exceeded.
The heat on Wednesday alone, when the temperature soared as high as 112.3 degrees Fahrenheit (44.3 degrees Celsius), exceeded the 2050 projections in 19 out of 34 locations across mainland France — far sooner than some may have expected.
Some places surpassed those hypothetical future temperatures by more than 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
It’s part of a dramatic shift in heat wave frequency across the country. Half of the heat waves observed since 1947 have occurred since 2010.
“By 2100, heat waves could last up to two months continuously,” the country’s weather agency, Météo-France, said this week.
It was hotter in France on Wednesday than in Las Vegas and Phoenix and just two degrees Fahrenheit shy of what was observed in Death Valley, California. An estimated less than one percent of the planet was hotter than France’s hottest place.
The powerful and persistent area of high pressure — also called a heat dome — that caused the temperature spike developed as a result of a jet stream fluctuation that allowed hot air to surge northward from Africa.
But the heat dome, which will linger into early next week, is only part of the story. This type of extreme heat is becoming more common as the planet warms, especially in Europe.
People cool off in a fountain by the Eiffel Tower in Paris on Wednesday. (Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters)
Climate scientist Robert Rohde said in a post explaining the heat wave’s causes that France and Western Europe should expect many more heat waves like this over the coming decades.
“This isn’t a fluke, but simply part of the new normal,” he said.
About this story
Predicted temperatures for France in 2050 are based on the possible scenarios outlined by Évelyne Dhéliat‘s presentation in the 2014 campaign coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization. For the observed temperatures in France on Wednesday, data was sourced from Meteociel. Those readings were matched to the nearest location on the 2050 heat wave forecast map.
By Ben Noll Ben Noll is a meteorologist passionate about explaining the why behind the weather, extreme events and climate trends. He has expertise in data analysis, supercomputer-driven graphics and forecasting weather worldwide. follow on X@BenNollWeather
Here are some “ETs” recorded from around the U.S. the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is More Climate News from Friday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)