In a recent USA Today story “Hottest summer ever? US breaks longstanding record,” the writer claims that the United States just experienced its hottest summer ever based on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) latest temperature analysis. That claim is misleading, based on an incomplete causal analysis. The best available evidence suggests that much of the reported “record” depends on adjusted temperature datasets and weather stations increasingly affected by urban development, while the nation’s highest-quality climate network tells a very different story.
USA Today accurately repeated NOAA’s announcement that the average temperature for June through August 2026 was the warmest in the 132-year record for the contiguous United States, edging out 1936 and 2021 by just 0.4°F.
That sounds straightforward enough, but unfortunately, it isn’t.
The first problem is terminology. USA Today repeatedly calls this the “hottest summer ever.” NOAA itself does not. NOAA consistently describes 2026 as the “warmest summer on record” based on average temperatures. The word “hottest” never appears in NOAA’s announcement. That distinction matters because “warmest average” and “hottest” are not the same thing.
Meteorologist Chris Martz carefully examined NOAA’s data and found that the reported record was driven largely by higher than normal overnight minimum temperatures rather than record daytime highs. Using average daytime maximum temperatures, 2026 ranks behind several earlier summers, including the legendary Dust Bowl summer of 1936.
That fact is hardly a trivial. Most Americans experience summer heat primarily during the daytime, not as an average of daytime highs and nighttime lows. Martz also points out something almost entirely absent from the media coverage. Although the national average narrowly set a record, very few parts of the country actually experienced their hottest summer.
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