The U.S. just had its hottest month in recorded history, surpassing Dust Bowl record » Yale Climate Connections

by Jeff Masters and Bob Henson, Yale Climate Connections
August 10, 2026

Those who deny or dismiss U.S. climate change have hit a Waterloo moment of sorts. The nation just experienced its hottest month in more than 130 years of analysis, which breaks a record that had stood since the infamous Dust Bowl of the 1930s. For the 48 contiguous states, the July 2026 average of 76.89 degrees Fahrenheit (24.94 degrees Celsius) came in 0.12°F (0.07°C) above the value from July 1936. This makes last month the hottest calendar month in national data going back to January 1895.

Remarkably, the contiguous U.S. average temperature was also the hottest on record for the past six months (February-July 2026), and for the past 12-, 18-, 24-, 36-, 48-, and 60-month periods, as depicted in the Climate at a Glance plotting tool from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. The year to date (January-July) is the second-hottest on record nationally.

The sheer breadth of the 48-state heat for July was especially shocking. Only one U.S. state, Wyoming, had its hottest July on record, but nine other states had a top-10 hottest July, and every one of the contiguous states was warmer than average. Though not included in the contiguous U.S. report, Alaska had its 20th-coldest July on record and its 30th-coldest January-to-July period.

The Dust Bowl heat was real – and so is fossil-fuel-driven warming

There’s no denying the scorching conditions of the 1930s Dust Bowl. An impressive 24 of the 48 contiguous U.S. states have yet to exceed the single hottest readings observed in each of those states during the 1930s.

However, the Dust Bowl has been misused for years in climate-denial writing and speaking to argue that human activity isn’t warming the nation’s climate to any great degree. In fact, human influence played a vast part in the Dust Bowl itself. Decades of overplowing by European settlers in the Plains and Midwest – in the erroneous belief that “rain follows the plow” – left the landscape vulnerable when a sequence of multi-year droughts struck. Huge volumes of topsoil simply blew away, and the denuded land heated up far more quickly than better-managed land would have. The Dust Bowl intersected with the Great Depression to make the 1930s a period of profound misery for millions of Americans.

A 2022 study, “How the Great Plains Dust Bowl drought spread heat extremes around the Northern Hemisphere,” showed how the Dust Bowl’s physical influence extended well beyond U.S. borders. As lead author Gerald Meehl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research put it, “This is a mechanism that arose in a unique way from human influence — not by burning fossil fuels but from plowing up the middle third of the U.S.”

Second-worst July drought conditions on record for the contiguous U.S.

July was the 26th-driest July in contiguous U.S. history, and the January-July period was the 17th-driest, according to NOAA. One state (Maine) had a top-10 driest July on record, and two states (Connecticut and Rhode Island) had a top-10 wettest July. Drought conditions are particularly dire in Puerto Rico, where the capital of San Juan just suffered through its driest and second-hottest July on record. Rotating 48-hour water shut-offs now affect 180,000 customers on the island.

The combined effects of the record warmth in July and below-average precipitation for the year made July 2026 the second-worst July for drought across the contiguous U.S.; only the Dust Bowl year of 1934 had worse July drought conditions. The latest U.S. Drought Monitor showed 71% of the contiguous U.S. with abnormal dryness or drought during the first week of August. Although this was a three percentage point increase compared to the last week of July, it was down considerably from the 80% peak reached during the last week of March, which was the third-worst month for U.S. drought since 1895 (exceeded only by the months of August and July during the Dust Bowl year of 1934). Three of the top-10 months for worst U.S. drought since 1895 have been in 2026 (March, April, and May); two others ranked in the top-20 (February and June), using the Palmer Drought Severity Index.

Drought has already cost the U.S. $2.5 billion in direct damages during the first half of 2026, according to Gallagher Re. The reinsurance giant pegged U.S. drought costs during all of 2025 at $4 billion.

According to NOAA, as of August 3, the largest area of rainfall deficit in the U.S. was in the Florida Peninsula, where up to 16-25 inches of rain was needed in just one month to pull the state out of long-term drought. The central Texas coast needed 10-11 inches of rain, which was a considerable improvement since the beginning of summer, when 20 inches was needed. The recent rains there have delayed the onset of a dire water crisis in Corpus Christi until at least the fall of 2028 — a year later than previously expected.

There’s some real hope that the intensifying El Niño event now in progress will bring welcome rains to much of the contiguous United States. As of Monday, August 10, weekly sea surface temperatures in the benchmark Niño3.4 region of the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean had risen to 1.8°C above the seasonal average. That already puts the ongoing event into the “strong” category, fast approaching the informal 2°C benchmark for a “very strong” event (informally referred to as a “super El Niño”). El Niño typically brings wetter-than-average conditions to the southern half of the contiguous United States, especially during winter.

A dangerous summer of wildfires and wildfire smoke continues

As climate change bakes forests across the U.S. this record-hot summer of 2026, one of the worst wildfire years on record is intensifying. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, 101 new fires were reported nationwide Sunday, August 9, including nine new large fires. Over 6.3 million acres have burned, exceeding the burned area from all of 2025, and putting 2026 in first place for most burned area over at least the past 10 years. Dozens of additional out-of-control wildfires are burning throughout Canada. Six U.S. wildland firefighters have died so far this year.

Dense smoke from 98 large uncontained wildfires is now blanketing tens of millions of people with hazardous pollution. Pollution from small particles called PM2.5 — the fine particles less than 2.5 microns in diameter are the primary air pollution killers — was in the red “Unhealthy” range across four states and two Canadian provinces in the Northwest on Sunday, continuing into today. Smoke from the wildfire smoke event that enveloped the Great Lakes and Northeast U.S. July 15-23 has already been blamed for about 4,000 premature deaths. Thousands of additional such deaths have undoubtedly occurred during the widespread smoke events that have occurred since.

Major U.S. weather stations in July: at least 184 all-time heat records

At least 184 all-time highs were set or tied at locations across the United States in July, bringing the total for the January 1-August 9 to 213, according to NOAA/NCEI. By comparison, only 20 all-time lows have been set or tied all year. Some of the major cities that set new all-time highs in July included: 

Atlantic City (New Jersey) 41.1°C (106°F), July 4
Miles City (Montana) 46.1°C (115°F), July 12
Bozeman (Montana) 41.1°C (106°F), July 12
Billings Airport (Montana) 43.9°C (111°F), July 12
Salt Lake City (Utah) 42.8°C (109°F), July 12
Brigham City (Utah) 41.1°C (106°F), July 12
Logan (Utah) 40.6°C (105°F), July 12
Cody (Wyoming) 41.1°C (106°F), July 12
Idaho Falls (Idaho) 39.4°C (103°F), July 12
Provo (Utah) 40.6°C (105°F), July 12
Medicine Bow (Wyoming) 36.7°C (98°F), July 13
Riverton (Wyoming) 41.1°C (106°F), July 13
Grand Portage (Minnesota) 36.1°C (97°F), July 15
Rapid City (South Dakota) 44.4°C (112°F), July 25
Trinidad (Colorado) 38.9°C (102°F), July 26
Burlington (Colorado) 45.0°C (113°F), July 27
Russell Springs (Kansas) 46.7°C (116°F), July 27

Drawing on data from NOAA’s U.S. Daily Records website as compiled and analyzed by meteorologist Guy Walton, July 2026 had 3,207 daily maximum temperature records, compared to 464 daily minimum temperature records: about a seven-to-one ratio.

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