--- title: "It’s Official: This Is the Hottest America Has Ever Been" description: "The contiguous US averaged 76.89 degrees Fahrenheit in July, even hotter than the July 1936 Dust Bowl." date: "2026-08-11" modified: "2026-08-11" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/science-energy/official-hottest-america-ever-been" categories: - "Climate Change" - "Environment" - "Global Warming" - "Pollution" - "Science & Energy" --- # It’s Official: This Is the Hottest America Has Ever Been ![A photo of dead sunfllowers.]() *Shutterstock / Futurism* It's not just you — the United States is going through a record-bustingly hot summer. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the contiguous US averaged 76.89 degrees Fahrenheit in July, which is even hotter than the July 1936 Dust Bowl, an environmental and agricultural disaster marked by devastating dust storms. Much like the Dust Bowl, which was the result of both natural and human-made factors, this year's record-breaking temperatures are the result of a [strong El Niño]() — a naturally occuring weather pattern — exacerbating the calamitous effects of human-caused climate change. "It’s not good when you’re breaking records from the Dust Bowl, which we are in this case," Yale Climate Connections meteorologist Jeff Masters [told the *Associated Press*](). "And that was a crazy sort of situation where you put tens of millions of people in motion. You had this great migration because of the drought and the heat that hit the center of the US — just a cataclysmic event in US history." "If we’re exceeding records from the Dust Bowl, that says that we’re in deep trouble," Masters added. While the heat was more concentrated in the Midwest during the Dust Bowl, all 48 lower states experienced excessive heat this summer — at least one degree Fahrenheit warmer than the 20th century average. And instead of focusing on ways to fight the effects of climate change, much of the country is moving in the opposite direction. The Trump administration is closely aligned with the fossil fuel industry and is actively seeking to reopen coal-burning plants. AI data centers [powered by gas generators]() are compounding a major uptick in greenhouse gas emissions. The result is a country literally on fire, while suffering the second-worst July drought conditions on record for the contiguous US, [according to Yale Climate Connections](). Per the US Drought Monitor, a [whopping 71 percent]() of the contiguous US experienced abnormal dryness or drought during the first week of August, coming on top of billions of dollars in direct damages during the first half of 2026. Meanwhile, major wildfires continue to burn across both the US and Canada, exposing millions to dangerous levels of air pollution and causing an estimated 4,000 premature deaths across the continent within a single week last month, [according to *The Economist*](). The prognosis is just as grim as one might think. "This may be one of the coolest years we’re gonna experience for the rest of our lives," Masters told the *AP*. To give humanity a fighting chance we need to "stop burning so many fossil fuels," he added. "We also need to be spending money to adapt to the new climate that we’ve put in place." **More on climate change:** [*AI Data Centers Are Causing Unfathomable Amounts of Air Pollution, and It Gets Worse With Each New One They Build*]() ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()