Regions home to around 900 million people experienced their hottest July on record in 2026, including in the Sahel, Central America, France and Spain, according to AFP analysis of Copernicus data.
Some 33 countries recorded their hottest July since records began, according to a detailed analysis of billions of data points from Copernicus’s ERA5 climate model.
Western Europe experienced its hottest June-July on record as climate change fuels an historic summer of heat, drought and wildfires across the region, the EU’s global warming monitor said Monday.
120 million Europeans hit
Nearly 120 million Europeans live in regions where July 2026 was the hottest ever recorded.
The records were concentrated in southern Britain, western France, and northern and eastern Spain.
In France, average temperatures were 3.8C above the 1991-2020 normal — a reference period already significantly warmer than the pre-industrial climate of 1850-1900.
France and Spain also registered record levels of drought, which fuelled devastating wildfires.
A megafire burned nearly 42,000 hectares and forced the evacuation of more than 220,000 people in France’s Gironde department in late July.
At the same time, Spain’s largest wildfire in recent history scorched almost 44,000 hectares in Avila province, near Madrid.
Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent and the first two months of summer have been marked by successive heatwaves, scorching temperatures and bone-dry conditions.
Since it started in May, the intense heat has caused many wildfires, a protracted drought, new national temperature records throughout the region, and thousands of anticipated heat-related deaths.
Globally, so far this is the third-hottest year, behind 2024 and 2025, climate statistics show. But 2026 still has time to catch up.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service said the combined average temperature in western Europe for June-July was 21.62C — beating the 2022 record for the same period.
There is a growing possibility that by year’s end, 2026 will surpass 2024 as the hottest year on record, or at least come close, due to the combined effects of accelerated human-caused global warming and a supersized El Niño, a periodic warming of parts of the Pacific that causes temperature variations worldwide, according to scientists.
Sahel 2°C above average
Nearly 400 million of the roughly 900 million people residing in affected areas live in Africa, primarily within the Sahel region.
Ten countries in the region broke their monthly heat records for July, including Mauritania, Niger and Burkina Faso in the west and Sudan, Kenya and Ethiopia in the east.
Temperature variations and anomalies in countries close to the equator are typically smaller than in temperate climates.
Yet countries such as Chad and Sudan recorded July temperatures more than 2°C above the 1981-2010 average.
Episodes of extreme heat have become almost 10 times more likely since 2015, scientists from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) network warned in January, attributing the rise to human-driven climate change.
Sahel countries are among the most vulnerable to rising temperatures, while many are already grappling with armed conflict, food insecurity and widespread poverty.
Widespread drought
Levels of soil moisture were “significantly lower” than in July 2022 when the last severe drought gripped western Europe, Copernicus added.
“This is a clear example of how climate change is intensifying heat extremes, with heat and drought increasingly reinforcing one another,” said Samantha Burgess from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which operates Copernicus.
Very dry conditions were observed in July across western and central European nations, including France, Spain, Austria and Hungary, but also the United Kingdom, Ireland, and part of Iceland.
River flows were unusually low, with the Seine, Rhine, and Danube particularly affected. Transport, irrigation and energy production have been impacted in several European countries.
These hot and dry conditions were also ideal for fires and scientists say the frequency of extreme fire-prone weather in Europe is increasing with climate change.
France and Spain have battled their worst infernos in living memory this summer, while other nations in Europe and as well as the US northwest and Canada have also experienced serious blazes.
Hottest last 11 years
Globally, last month was the joint second-hottest July on record, with an average surface air temperature 1.47°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial benchmark, Copernicus said.
The last 11 years have been the hottest on record and “we have not seen a climate that warm during our lifetime, and very possibly our civilisation”, Buontempo said.
“And the main driver for this warming — as we know — are the greenhouse gases”, he said.
Oceans absorb most of the excess heat caused by humanity’s carbon emissions and therefore play a key role in regulating the climate.
Hotter seas can have damaging knock-on effects on the planet, fuelling stronger storms and rainfall and bleaching coral reefs.
Copernicus takes measurements using billions of satellite and weather readings, both on land and at sea, and their data extends back to 1940.
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