The US just had its hottest summer on record, beating the Dust Bowl era

The United States just had its hottest summer in 132 years of recordkeeping, soundly beating the summer of 1936 — during the Dust Bowl era — as well as the summer of 2021, according to data released Wednesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Previously, those two years had tied for the hottest summer.

The Dust Bowl summer of 1936 has been long been regarded as the benchmark of hottest summers in the US, but has now been equaled or eclipsed twice in the past five years thanks to the influence of human-caused climate change. August 2026 and the June-through-August period both set all-time records, and July was the hottest month of any month on record in the US. The difference between the new and old seasonal records was 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit, which is relatively large for an all-time temperature record.

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Summer featured widespread above-average temperatures across the Lower 48 states, with well-above-normal nighttime low temperatures throughout the country — largely driven by a series of powerful heat domes that affected nearly every state besides Alaska and Hawaii.

The average temperature during August in the Lower 48 states was 75.6 degrees Fahrenheit, which was 3.5 degrees above the 20th century average. The average for meteorological summer — from June through August — was 74.4 degrees, which was 3 degrees above average.

Record-breaking heat was especially present across the Southwest, with Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado each setting records for their warmest summer. The searing season only exacerbated the Colorado River water crisis.

One sign of how incredibly hot the summer was can be seen in the balance of record highs to record lows. There were a staggering 1,541 record monthly highs set or tied nationally, compared to just 87 monthly record lows set or tied. In a climate that was not rapidly warming, one would expect the ratio of records to be closer to even.

The summer temperature record comes amid a strengthening El Niño in the tropical Pacific, along with the growing effects of long-term climate change. Climate change in particular is leading to more intense, frequent and long-lasting heat waves, while El Niño is further increasing global average temperatures.

According to NOAA data, the months of June through August in the US have warmed by about 0.46 degrees Fahrenheit per decade since 1970.

CNN Lead Meteorologist Brandon Miller contributed reporting.

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