The summer of 2026 is turning out to be one of the most difficult in recent years for Western Europe, with successive heat waves and temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius.
The first signs of an unusually hot summer appeared as early as May. Temperatures reached unprecedented levels in some places, breaking records that had stood for decades.
What initially seemed like an extreme but isolated episode turned out to be just the beginning. By mid-August, most of Europe had already been hit by the fifth heatwave of the season, the last reaching over 40°C.
Characteristic of these periods was not only the high maximum temperatures, but also their duration. In some cases, the heat continued for days or even weeks, without any significant drop at night.
NASA has captured the successive heat waves in Europe from May 1 to August 19 and turned them into a video.
NASA's video shows the evolution of daily maximum temperatures in Western Europe from May 1 to August 19, 2026. The visualization was created by combining satellite observations with temperature data from NASA's Goddard Earth Observing System global model.
Areas shown in darker red indicate places where temperatures reached or exceeded 40 degrees Celsius.
Records were being broken at a rapid pace. In London, the temperature reached 35.1°C on May 26, breaking the previous record for May by 2.3 degrees.
In Bordeaux, France, the maximum temperature record was broken for three consecutive days in June, with the mercury reaching 42.5°C on June 24.
In August, Slovakia set new national records for both maximum daytime temperatures and minimum nighttime temperatures.
According to the European climate monitoring service Copernicus, the combined temperatures of June and July in Western Europe were the highest ever recorded. ©LAPSI.al
