The United States just recorded its hottest meteorological summer in 132 years of measurements, according to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. The agency’s August 2026 national climate report says the June-through-August average for the contiguous United States was 74.4°F, 3.0°F above the twentieth-century average and warmer than any other summer in the record that begins in 1895.
The new mark did not edge past a weak benchmark. NOAA says it exceeded the previous hottest-summer records, set in 1936 and 2021, by 0.4°F. August itself averaged 75.6°F across the contiguous states, 3.5°F above the twentieth-century average, making it the hottest August in the same 132-year record.
The June-to-August average beat 1936 and 2021
Meteorological summer is the three-month period from June through August, a fixed window that lets climatologists compare the same season across years. NOAA’s figure of 74.4°F is an area-wide average for the contiguous United States, not the temperature measured at one airport or the hottest afternoon in one city.
The 0.4°F gap over the previous record may sound small, but it is a difference across a continent-sized area and an entire season. NOAA places the current result above both 1936, a year synonymous with Dust Bowl heat, and 2021, the prior modern record. The agency reports that August daytime maximums averaged 88.6°F, also a record.
Temperature averages also conceal the uneven lived pattern. A string of unusually warm nights changes the seasonal mean even when a place does not set a daily high record. NOAA found much-above-average nighttime minimum temperatures across most of the contiguous states during the summer, while some Midwest, Ohio Valley and Tennessee Valley daytime averages remained closer to normal.
NOAA’s August national climate report supplies the record and regional results. Its Climate at a Glance service provides the underlying historical comparisons, while the agency’s monthly report archive explains its national assessments. The NOAA Climate.gov portal offers public climate context, and the U.S. Climate Reference Network describes one of NOAA’s temperature-observation systems.
Record warmth covered much of the West and Southwest
California, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado each set a record for their warmest August average temperature, NOAA says. California and New Mexico also posted their warmest average daytime maximum temperatures on record. Record-warm nighttime minimums extended across California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado.
For the full summer, Arizona tied its warmest season on record, while New Mexico, Utah and Colorado set their own summer records. The concentration in the Southwest does not mean other regions were unaffected; NOAA describes above- to much-above-average August temperatures across most of the contiguous United States, with near-average conditions limited to parts of the northern Plains and Midwest.
Alaska and Hawaiʻi are reported separately because the 132-year benchmark is for the contiguous United States. Alaska’s August average ranked in the warmest third of its 102-year record. Hawaiʻi’s August average of 70.8°F was 1.4°F above its 1991–2020 average and ranked third warmest in its shorter record.
Heat arrived with sharply different rainfall patterns
The temperature story did not produce one uniform water story. August precipitation averaged 2.30 inches across the contiguous United States, 0.32 inch below the twentieth-century average and in the driest third of the 132-year record. Texas and Oklahoma each received less than 30% of normal August precipitation, ranking third and fifth driest statewide, respectively.
At the same time, Indiana and Ohio recorded their wettest August on record, at about twice their average August totals. Illinois, West Virginia and New Jersey received more than 50% above their typical August precipitation. The summer total for the contiguous United States, 8.11 inches, sat 0.21 inch below average, with California receiving just 0.20 inch—26% of its normal summer precipitation.
Hawaiʻi provided another contrast. Hurricane Lala brought heavy rainfall that helped make August the state’s second-wettest August on record, NOAA says. The report lists 43.54 inches at Laupāhoehoe on the Big Island and says the statewide January-through-August period was the wettest on record.
The record is a climate measurement, not a forecast
NOAA’s report describes a completed season. It does not say every future summer will be hotter, nor does it assign a cause to a particular day or storm. Its value is in the measurement: the same national dataset shows that summer 2026 passed 1936 and 2021 in the 132-year contiguous-U.S. record.
The agency also recorded drought covering 59.1% of the contiguous United States on September 1, up more than 10 percentage points from early August. Together with record heat, dry conditions in parts of the South and West, and heavy rainfall elsewhere, that figure shows why a national average is a starting point rather than the whole experience of a summer.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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