Western Europe experienced the hottest June ever recorded, while globally June 2026 was the second hottest in history. Data published Thursday by the European Copernicus service shows that extreme temperatures were accompanied by drought, vegetation fires, and floods, signs of a climate that continues to warm.
In Western Europe, the average temperature in June reached 20.74°C, more than 3 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 period average and above the previous record set in 2025.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) report, managed by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), shows that the ocean surface temperature also reached a new high for the month of June.
Successive heatwaves and broken records
Experts say that the heatwave in the second half of June came just a few weeks after a very strong one in May, and at the beginning of July, Europe was hit by a new episode of extreme temperatures.
In several European countries, both June records and historical temperature records were exceeded. According to Copernicus, these episodes had serious effects on public health, including heat-related deaths.
ECMWF's Strategic Climate Coordinator, Samantha Burgess, warns that these records show that the climate system continues to accumulate heat.
"June 2026 highlighted how profoundly the climate is changing. Western Europe experienced its hottest June on record, and the global ocean continued to record record temperatures. The result - increasingly intense heatwaves, a persistently warm ocean, and growing risks for people, ecosystems, and infrastructure," she said.
Drought in one part of Europe, floods in another
The report shows that a large part of Western, Central, and Eastern Europe had a drier June than usual. The drought, combined with extreme temperatures, favored the outbreak of vegetation fires, especially in the Iberian Peninsula and southern France, and increased the risk of drought in some regions of Eastern Europe.
At the same time, other areas experienced above-average rainfall. Iceland, Ireland, much of the UK, the Baltic states, and Greece faced occasional heavy rains and local floods.
The second hottest June globally
Globally, June 2026 was the second hottest June ever recorded, with an average temperature of 16.54°C, 0.56°C above the 1991-2020 period average.
The global temperature was 1.39°C above the estimated level of the pre-industrial period (1850-1900), and the average ocean surface temperature reached a new record for this month, 20.86°C, amid the intensification of the El Niño phenomenon.