Abu dhabi: June 2026 was the hottest June recorded for Western Europe and the second warmest globally, driven by the highest sea surface temperatures on record for the month. The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), provided this data in their monthly update.
According to Emirates News Agency, the intense heat in parts of Western Europe has persisted into July, causing devastating wildfires in France and the Iberian Peninsula. The Fabra Observatory in Barcelona, a long-standing weather observing station of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), recorded a staggering 40.5°C on July 8, marking the highest temperature in over a century of data collection.
France has been under a widespread amber alert, the second highest level, for heat, compounded by a high fire danger level due to drought, elevated temperatures, and low humidity, as reported by Meteo-France. The WMO, along with its members and partners, is actively mobilizing early warnings and implementing coordinated heat-health action plans to save lives and guide decisions to minimize economic and ecosystem damage, as well as disruptions to infrastructure and labor productivity.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has indicated that extreme heat events are expected to become more frequent, intense, and prolonged. John Kennedy, head of climate information at WMO, stated, "Heatwaves like this are what we expect to see in a changing climate." He noted that since the historic heatwave in 1976, Europe has warmed by approximately two degrees, making it the fastest-warming continent, with increased temperature extremes.
June witnessed a record-breaking heatwave across much of Western Europe, alongside marine heatwaves in the western Mediterranean and along the Atlantic coasts. Globally, the monthly average sea-surface temperature for the extra-polar ocean was the highest for June, slightly surpassing the previous record set in June 2024, partly due to the development of strong El Ni±o conditions in the equatorial Pacific, as reported by the Copernicus Climate Change SeArvice.
The heatwave set new monthly and all-time temperature records across multiple European countries, contributing to severe health impacts, including heat-related deaths. Europe also experienced widespread dryness, which, coupled with extreme heat, fueled wildfire activity, particularly in the Iberian Peninsula and southern France, and heightened drought risk in parts of eastern Europe. The June heatwave exacerbated drought conditions, following the dry soils observed during May's heatwave across western and central Europe.
Globally, June 2026 was the second-warmest June in the ERA5 dataset, with an average surface air temperature of 16.54°C, 0.56°C above the 1991-2020 average for the month, only behind June 2024. In Europe, the average land temperature for June 2026 was the second-highest on record for the month. Western Europe, the region most impacted by the heatwave, experienced its warmest June on record, with an average temperature of 20.74°C, 3.05°C above the 1991-2020 average for June, surpassing the previous record set in June 2025.