Median night-time anomaly
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Across the selected cities, average daily minimum, °C
NASA POWER · daily MERRA‑2 snapshot · through 19 August 2026
Are summer nights getting warmer?
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People often notice a hot afternoon first. Climate change also shows up in the hours when the day should cool down. This dashboard follows that lower edge of summer temperature across European and North American cities.
The comparison uses NASA POWER’s daily 2-m temperature estimates for the same dates in every year from 2000 to 2026. It tracks the daily mean temperature and the daily minimum temperature, then asks how far 2026 sits above or below the 2000–2025 average. August is matched to the first 19 days, because the current year is still incomplete.
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How to read it: a positive anomaly means the 2026 value is warmer than that city’s 2000–2025 average for the same dates. The comparison is a weather snapshot with a climate question behind it; one summer cannot establish a long-term trend or attribute a cause on its own.
Cities above baseline
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2026 average daily minimum above 2000–2025
Warmest nights
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Largest night anomaly
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2026 versus recent summers, city by city
Ranked horizontal bars show how far 2026 sits above or below the selected historical period. The two panels separate daily mean temperature from average daily minimum temperature.
| City | Mean · 2026 | Mean · 2000–25 | Mean Δ | Min · 2026 | Min · 2000–25 | Min Δ |
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Bars are sorted from the largest positive difference to the largest negative difference. The exact 2026 values, historical averages and signed differences remain in the table below. August is matched to 1–19 August in every year.
Where were 2026 nights warmer?
Two focused panels keep the city labels readable. Each dot shows the change in average daily minimum temperature during 1 May–19 August, compared with that city’s 2000–2025 average.
Europe
—North America
— cooler than baseline near baseline warmer than baselinelabels show the exact anomaly
The map uses a gridded reanalysis estimate at each city coordinate, not a thermometer in the city centre. Use the city comparison below for the monthly and year-by-year detail.
Every city, month by month
Anomaly in average daily minimum temperature. Positive cells mean warmer nights than the same month in 2000–2025. August covers 1–19 August in all years.
| City | May | June | July | August 1–19 | Season |
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This table is the quickest screenshot of the cross-city result. It shows temperature differences, not a ranking of climate risk.
Minimum temperatures: how did the city’s nights compare?
The primary comparison is the average of each day’s lowest temperature. Use the second button to switch to daily mean temperature.
20262000–2025 averagehistorical 10th–90th percentile
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Top 3 warmest completed years, 2000–2025 daily mean and average daily minimum
Dots show 2026. The blue dot is the 2000–2025 average; the grey whisker spans the historical 10th–90th percentile for that month. “Minimum” is the average of daily lows, not the single coldest night.
Was 2026 warmer than recent summers?
For each month, compare 2026 with the average for the previous 5 years (2021–2025), 10 years (2016–2025), and 26 years (2000–2025). The same dates are used in every period, including 1–19 August.
Average daily minimum
The overnight signal, in °C
20262021–252016–252000–25
Daily mean temperature
The whole-day signal, in °C
20262021–252016–252000–25
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Bars show absolute temperatures. The useful comparison is the vertical gap between the orange 2026 bar and each historical bar. A positive gap means 2026 was warmer for that month.
The same-season trend
The matched 1 May–19 August value for every year from 2000 to 2026. The dashed line is the 2000–2025 average.
MetricView
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Sources and method
Daily temperature values come from the NASA POWER Daily API, requested in UTC for the city coordinates shown here. The meteorological fields are derived from NASA GMAO’s MERRA‑2 assimilation model. T2M is the daily average; T2M_MIN is the minimum of the 24 hourly 2-m temperatures.
- Current snapshot: 1 May–19 August 2026, the latest complete range available in this pull.
- Baseline: the same dates in 2000–2025. City anomalies are 2026 minus that city’s historical average.
- The city-by-city comparison also offers matched 2021–2025 and 2016–2025 averages, labelled as the previous 5 and 10 years.
- “All European cities” is a simple unweighted average of the European city series shown in this dashboard.
- NASA POWER is a gridded reanalysis estimate. It is consistent across cities, but it does not capture every station, street or urban heat-island effect.
- NOAA GHCN Daily and Europe’s ECA&D are the next validation layer for station-level observations. ECA&D’s public current series did not yet cover this summer in the source check.
The dashboard describes observed/reanalysed temperature differences. It does not claim that a single city’s 2026 summer was caused by climate change. A longer trend analysis should use a homogeneous station series or gridded climate product over several decades.