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:
Green News Report with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen
Episode: 9/10/2026 —
Main Topic: Long Streak of Hottest Months on Record Has Begun for the Planet
Dear Diary. July and August 2026 have turned out to be the warmest months in recorded history for the planet due to climate change combined with a building record strong El Niño. This is not surprising given our best climate science and forecasting skills. The big question now is how long will a streak of record warm months last? It might go on until August 2027 since the last streak of record warm planetary months ended during August 2016 after the last super El Niño faded into memory. That period was 15 consecutive months according to NOAA/NASA: June 2023 through August 2024. Of course, here on this site we will keep track of this new streak of record warm months.
The planet will suffer much the next couple of years due to this new record strong El Niño. It will be a warning to us all to get our carbon pollution act together, perhaps the last warning before literally all hell breaks loose in the 2030s when conditions get even warmer.
Here are more details about August 2026 from Dr. Jeff Masters and Bob Henson writing for Yale Climate Communications:
Earth just had its hottest August on record » Yale Climate Connections
Earth just had its hottest August on record
The intensifying super El Niño, combined with global warming, is favored to make 2026 the hottest year on record, with 2027 expected to be even hotter.
by Jeff Masters and Bob Henson
September 10, 2026
A firetruck passes as a wildfire called the Plaskett Fire burns towards Highway 1 on Friday, Aug. 28, 2026, in Big Sur, Calif. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
[Haz clic aquí para leer en español]
August 2026 was the planet’s hottest August since modern record-keeping began in 1850, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, or NCEI, reported September 10. NASA also rated it as the hottest August, and the European Copernicus Climate Change Service rated it as the hottest month in recorded history, tied with July 2023. The global average temperature for January-August 2026 was the second-highest on record, trailing only 2024.
Figure 1. Departure of temperature from average for August 2026, the world’s hottest August since record-keeping began in 1850. Globally, 13.2% of land and ocean surfaces set record-high August temperatures — the largest areal extent for any August on record and the third-highest for any month since 1951, trailing only May 2024 (14.3%) and April 2024 (13.9%). No land or ocean areas experienced record-cold August temperatures. (Image credit: NOAA/NCEI)
Global ocean surface temperatures were the warmest on record for August, while global land temperatures were the second-warmest. The month was also the second-warmest August on record for global temperatures estimated by satellite through the lowest few miles of the atmosphere (the lower troposphere). North America and Africa both recorded their hottest August on record; Asia, its second-hottest; the Arctic, its third-hottest; South America and Europe, their fourth-hottest; and Oceania, its eighth-hottest.
The June-July-August period (summer in the Northern Hemisphere) was the hottest on record for North America, Africa, and the Arctic; second-hottest in Europe; third-hottest in Asia; and for South America and Oceania, the fourth-hottest.
As detailed in our post yesterday, August 2026 was the hottest August in contiguous U.S. history, beating the record set in 1983. The June-July-August period was the hottest summer on record, and the year-to-date period is also the hottest on record. The previous hottest summer record was jointly held by 2021 and the Dust Bowl year of 1936.
According to NCEI’s statistical analysis, there is a greater than 98% chance that 2026 will rank among the three warmest years on record, but only a 1.4% chance it will be the hottest year on record. However, this statistics-based product is not designed to explicitly take El Niño or La Niña events into account, so with a record-strong global-atmosphere-warming El Niño event in full swing, it’s quite possible that 2026 will be the hottest year on record. Climate scientist Zeke Hausfather posits (see Bluesky post below) that 2026 has a 75% chance of being the warmest year on record, with 2027 likely to run away with the record. (Strong El Niño events normally peak in northern winter, and global temperature is typically higher in the second calendar year of the event than in the first one because of El Niño’s massive release of heat from ocean to atmosphere.)
NOAA expects the current strong El Niño event to reach “super” status
An El Niño advisory continues in the Eastern Pacific, NOAA reported in its September 10 monthly discussion of the state of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. As of September 8, weekly average sea surface temperatures in the benchmark Niño 3.4 region were at 1.8°C above average – well above the 1.5°C threshold for a strong El Niño event – and the three-month value for June-July-August was 1.4°C above average. The threshold for a very strong event is 2°C (colloquially dubbed a “super” event).
According to official probabilities from the NOAA Climate Prediction Center issued on September 10, it is essentially certain (100% chance) that El Niño conditions will continue through January-February-March 2027. By April-May-June, neutral conditions become the most likely outcome (55% chance, with a 43% chance of El Niño and a 2% chance of La Niña). Those April-to-June averages likely reflect a strong transition expected to be in progress during the spring. It’s worth noting that a strong El Niño event is usually (though not always!) followed by a moderate to strong La Niña event by the subsequent fall and winter, which in this case would be 2027-28.
https://bsky.app/profile/zacklabe.com/post/3muujkis2vs2h
Arctic sea ice: seventh-lowest August extent on record
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Arctic sea ice extent during August 2026 was the 7th-lowest in the 48-year satellite record. The Arctic experienced its third-warmest August on record. Antarctic sea ice extent in August 2026 was the third-lowest on record. The Antarctic region had above-average temperatures, which did not rank in the top 10 on record.
Notable global heat and cold marks for August 2026
Weather records expert Maximiliano Herrera has documented the records listed below in August. Follow him on Bluesky: @extremetemps.bsky.social or X: @extremetemps.
- Hottest temperature in the Northern Hemisphere: 52.0°C (125.6°F) at Kuwait City, Kuwait, August 12;
- Coldest temperature in the Northern Hemisphere: -34.9°C (-30.8°F) at Summit, Greenland, August 28;
- Hottest temperature in the Southern Hemisphere: 42.5°C (108.5°F) at Walvis Bay Airport, Namibia, August 24; and
- Coldest temperature in the Southern Hemisphere: -77.2°C (-107.0°F) at Vostok, Antarctica, August 1, and Concordia, Antarctica, August 25.
Nineteen all-time national/territorial heat records beaten or tied as of the end of August
Nineteen all-time national/territorial heat records beaten or tied as of the end of August
Chad: 48.0°C (118.4°F) at Faya, May 19 (tie)
Bahrain: 47.6°C (117.7°F) at Bahrain Airport, May 29
Jersey (UK territory): 39.3°C (102.6°F) at Maison St. Louis, June 25
Guernsey (UK territory): 36.4°C (97.5°F) at Rocquaine Bay, June 25
Luxembourg: 40.9°C (105.6°F) at Reckange, June 26
Denmark: 37.0°C (98.6°F) at Odum and Odense, June 27
Germany: 41.8°C (107.2°F) at Mockern-Drewitz, June 27
Czech Republic: 41.9°C (107.4°F) at Doksany, June 28
Poland: 40.5°C (104.9°F)at Slubice, June 28
Belarus: 40.4°C (104.7°F)at Pinsk, June 29
Slovakia: 41.3°C (106.3°F) at Kamenice nad Hronom, June 30; broken again with 41.4°C (106.5) at Kamenica nad Hronom, August 5; broken again with 42.2°C (108.0°F) at Dolné Plachtincy, August 6
Hungary: 42.0°C (107.6°F) at Szecseny, June 30 Uzbekistan: 49.7°C (121.5°F) at Achkuduk, July 18 (tie)
Kyrgyzstan: 44.6°C (112.3°F) at Jangy Jer, July 19
Switzerland: 39.7°C (103.5°F) at Basel, July 30 (tie)
Liechtenstein: 38.2°C (100.8°F) at Balzers, July 30; broken again with 38.5°C (101.3°F) at Balzers, August 4
South Korea: 41.4°C (106.5°F) at Yangsan, July 31; broken again with 42.5°C (108.5°F) at Yangsan, August 2
Austria: 41.0°C (105.8°F) at Vienna Stammersdorf, August 4; broken again with 41.2°C (106.2°F) at Bad Deutsch-Alternburg, August 5
Bahamas: 36.7°C (98.0°F) at Freeport, August 14
One all-time national/territorial cold record beaten or tied as of the end of August
Cuba: 0°C (32.0°F) at Indio Hatuey, February 3
(For more record lists, hit the following link: Earth just had its hottest August on record » Yale Climate Connections.)
Jeff Masters
Jeff Masters, Ph.D., worked as a hurricane scientist with the NOAA Hurricane Hunters from 1986-1990. After a near-fatal flight into category 5 Hurricane Hugo, he left the Hurricane Hunters to pursue a… More by Jeff Masters
Bob Henson
Bob Henson is a meteorologist and journalist based in Boulder, Colorado. He has written on weather and climate for the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Weather Underground, and many freelance… More by Bob Henson
Dr. Jeff Master’s and Bob Henson’s “Earth just had its hottest August on record” was first published on Yale Climate Connections, a program of the Yale School of the Environment, available at: http://yaleclimateconnections.org. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 license (CC BY-NC-ND 2.5).
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.)