June 2026 was the hottest in Western Europe, the second hottest in the world, the report found

Western Europe saw its hottest June on record this year as temperatures rose across the globe last month, with scorching heat fueling wildfires and, in some cases, he turned and died across the continent and the United States, according to a new report by the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

The C3S report also found that June 2026 was the second hottest June on record globally.

Much of Western Europe experienced a historic heat wave during the second half of the month, breaking monthly and all-time heat records in several countries, the report said.

Last month’s heat came between the first period of extreme heat that swept through the region in May and the start of vegetation in July.

“The succession of heat waves shows the growing challenge posed by increasing and extreme temperatures across Europe and the world,” the report said.

Samantha Burgess, a meteorologist at the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, said in a statement that June’s conditions “underscore how the climate is changing” and acknowledged that the world’s record temperatures were accompanied by oceanic heat waves spreading along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts.

“Together, these records show a climate that continues to accumulate heat,” said Burgess. “The result is more intense heat waves, persistently warmer oceans, and increasing risks to people, ecosystems and infrastructure across Europe and beyond.”

The drought coincided with June heat, fueling wildfires in southern France that have burned more than 11,000 hectares and forced about 10,000 people to evacuate since Monday, according to French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said earlier a number of people have died from drowning in France during one week in June, after seeking relief from the triple-digit temperatures by swimming.

As the month draws to a close, the head of the World Health Organization announced that Europe has reported more than 1,300 heat-related deaths since June 21. Most of them occurred in France, where officials told CBS News that they recorded almost 1,000 excess deaths, mostly among elderly citizens, due to the heat.

France again broke its heat records several times in June, the national weather service said, while the United Kingdom’s Met Office confirmed the same in the United Kingdom.

In line with wider global trends, the European continent experienced its second June heat wave on record this year, according to a C3S report released early Thursday local time. The researchers found that temperatures were about 3.2 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the 1991-2020 average.

The difference was even more pronounced in Western Europe, where the report found that June temperatures were about 5.5 degrees above average.

Ocean temperatures remain at “very high” levels in the tropical Pacific Ocean, where El Niño began, according to the report. Known as the warm phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation cycle, or ENSO, El Niño is characterized by unusually warm water, which in turn affects the global climate in a variety of ways.

The sorcerers said the current El Niño could be significantly strongerlikely to increase global temperatures and the risk of extreme weather in the coming months, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

Weather pattern can bring frequent and widespread flooding on the West and East coasts of the United States, even without hurricanes, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In Europe, El Niño could cause autumn temperatures to be warmer than normal, with that warming building towards the spring of 2027, according to the European Union’s Joint Research Center.

People across Europe have been exposed to extreme heat in recent years – reflecting what the scientific community generally sees as the result of human-caused climate change.

“Globally, extreme heat events appear to be increasing in frequency, duration and intensity,” the World Health Organization said on a page on its website dedicated to heat waves.

Estimating that the number of people exposed to heatstroke increased by nearly 125 million between 2000 and 2016, the agency said such extreme conditions could threaten health infrastructure, strain water, power and transportation systems, and threaten food or economic stability depending on where they occur.