That the heat of a summer that has not yet ended was something we had never experienced before is not just a collective perception. On 7 September, the Institute for BioEconomy of the National Research Council (CNR-IBE) officially declared the summer of 2026 to be the hottest since 1950.
The summary of the temperature series analysis — processed from the ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) ERA5-Land dataset — has not only confirmed the record-breaking nature of the current season, but has also shown that temperatures in every month up to August were higher than in 2025. Last month recorded the largest deviation, with a national average temperature of 25.6°C and a thermal anomaly of +5.2°C compared to the August average for the 1951–1980 baseline (20.4°C), and +3.5°C compared to the August average for the 1991–2020 baseline (22.1°C).
A summer in which the mean temperature two metres above ground level across the entire national territory reached 24.3°C.
As Lorenzo Arcidiaco, researcher at CNR-IBE, explains, two records regarding the mean August temperature were broken: the 24.6°C recorded in 2024 and the 24°C recorded in 2017. "Data that suggest," states Arcidiaco, "that 2026 could end up being the warmest year since 1950. For the first time since that year, we are facing the hottest July and August back-to-back." The heat this year had already begun in exceptional fashion during spring, with an average temperature equal to that recorded in 2024.
"In the January–August period, the proportion of national territory experiencing anomalies greater than two degrees rose to around 70 per cent, concentrated in the Northwestern plains and Apennine regions. Land," the researcher points out, "that is largely under cultivation. The exposure of these areas to higher temperatures and, in some cases, prolonged drought has meant that the primary sector has been the hardest hit."
