Does it seem like summer is going on longer and longer? And that crisp fall days are a thing of the past? Well, you are correct. Summer temperatures are lasting longer.
September was the second hottest September globally since record-keeping started in 1850. Global ocean surface temperatures were the warmest on record for September. And for the 48 contiguous United States: it was the hottest in 132 years of record-keeping (when averaged throughout the 48 states).
Do you see the pattern here? Month after month new records are being set. With temperatures trending higher and higher.
Excerpts from Yale Climate Connections: September 2026: 2nd-hottest September for Earth, hottest for the U.S.
September 2026 was the planet’s second-hottest September since modern record-keeping began in 1850, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, or NCEI, reported October 9. NASA and the European Copernicus Climate Change Service also rated it as the second-hottest September, behind 2023. The global average temperature for January-September 2026 was the second-highest on record, trailing only 2024.
Global ocean surface temperatures were the warmest on record for September, while global land temperatures were the third-warmest. It was the third-warmest September on record for global temperatures estimated by satellite through the lowest few miles of the atmosphere (the lower troposphere).
According to NCEI’s statistical analysis, there is a greater than 99.9% chance that 2026 will rank among the three warmest years on record, but only a 0.1% chance it will be the hottest year on record....Climate scientist Zeke Hausfather and NASA both project that 2026 will be the 1st or 2nd-warmest year on record, behind 2024, with 2027 likely to run away with the record. (Strong El Niño events normally peak in northern winter, and global temperature is typically higher in the second calendar year of the event than in the first one because of El Niño’s massive release of heat from ocean to atmosphere.)
The 48 contiguous United States racked up the highest average temperature for any U.S. September in data going back to 1895. It was the fourth month out of nine thus far in 2026 to set a U.S. monthly heat record, following March, July, and August. The heat was most intense in the central states: Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, and Illinois each set hottest-September records, beating even the September records set during the torrid years of the human-exacerbated Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
The truly record-smashing element of September wasn’t so much the weirdly hot days (although average daily highs were the fifth-highest on record over the contiguous U.S.), but the ridiculously persistent heat at night. The average daily minimum for the 48 states of 57.47°F was more than 1.2°F above the prior record from September 2019 – a huge margin for a new record.
Current strong El Niño event expected to intensify and smash all-time records
NOAA said, “Chances remain high for a historic event that would exceed the strength of previous El Niño events dating back to 1950 (+2.5°C or more for a 3-month RONI value): the chance is 54% for September-November, 83% for October-December, and 70% for November-January.”
According to official probabilities from the NOAA Climate Prediction Center issued on September 21, it is essentially certain (100% chance) that El Niño conditions will continue through January-February-March 2027.
