The latest bulletin from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, produced by the ECMWF as part of the European Earth Observation Program, confirms that June 2026 was the hottest June on record in Western Europe and the second-hottest globally.
The global average temperature reached 16.54 °C, which is 1.39 °C above pre-industrial levels. But it is the Old Continent that is showing the most alarming increase: Western Europe recorded an average temperature of 20.74 °C, more than 3 degrees above the 1991–2020 average, breaking the previous record set just one year ago.
A Continent Under a Heat Dome
Countries such as France, Germany, Spain, and Italy experienced a month with temperature anomalies ranging from 3 to 5 degrees above the climate norm. These countries recorded monthly and, in some cases, all-time high temperatures.
The most significant finding, however, is the persistence of this phenomenon: eight of the nine warmest Junes ever recorded in Europe have occurred since 2019. This is therefore not an isolated incident, but a trend that is now clear.
“June 2026 underscored just how profoundly the climate is changing,” said Samantha Burgess, Strategic Lead for Climate at the ECMWF. “Western Europe experienced its hottest June on record, and the global ocean continues to accumulate heat. The result is increasingly intense heat waves and growing risks to people, ecosystems, and infrastructure.”
Italy Close to Setting Records
According to Copernicus’s ERA5-Land data, Italy ended June with an average temperature of 22.71 °C, which is +3.27 °C above the 1991–2020 average. It was the fourth-warmest June since 1950, surpassed only by 2025, 2003, and 2022.
The North was the hardest-hit region, with temperature anomalies exceeding 3.5 °C and peaks of over 5 °C in some areas of Piedmont. The heat wave was concentrated mainly in the second half of the month, accompanied by increasingly frequent tropical nights and a 31% shortfall in precipitation compared to the average.
The Mediterranean Is Warming
It’s not just the air that’s cause for concern. Copernicus reports that the average ocean surface temperature—excluding polar regions—reached 20.86 °C, the highest value ever recorded for the month of June.In the western Mediterranean, some areas of the Ligurian Sea, the Tyrrhenian Sea, and the Gulf of Lion recorded water temperatures up to 6 degrees above average. For Italian waters, the monthly anomaly was +2.39 °C, second only to the historic June of 2003.
From Meteorology to Politics
The problem is no longer just today’s record. The data show that the climate conditions on which cities, infrastructure, power grids, and healthcare systems were designed are changing.
According to World Weather Attribution, heat waves like the one in June 2026 would have been virtually impossible just fifty years ago, and today they are tens to hundreds of times more likely due to global warming driven by greenhouse gas emissions. The question, then, is how quickly Italy and Europe will be able to adapt to a climate that has already changed the calendar.
