Climate News
May 2026 was the world's second-warmest May, says Copernicus, after a sudden heatwave in Europe
May 2026 was the second-warmest May on record worldwide, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, run by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). blue News, carrying a Keystone-SDA report, said Europe swung quickly from below-average temperatures into an unusually early and intense heatwave, with many May records falling, especially in France, the UK, Ireland and Portugal.
The Express Tribune in Pakistan gave the global figure: an average surface air temperature of 15.81C, about 1.42C above pre-industrial levels, with only May 2024 hotter. It reported 101 heat-related deaths in Spain in May and 40 in France. Blue News added that it was drier than average across much of Western, Central and Eastern Europe, while Turkey, Bulgaria and Moldova had heavy flooding.
"Climate extremes are becoming the new normal rather than the exception." — Samantha Burgess, ECMWF, via blue News
Blue News pointed to the Pacific, where sea surface temperatures were unusually high and the equatorial ocean was moving towards El Niño; the Express Tribune cited a WMO estimate of an 80% chance that El Niño develops between June and August.
How each outlet framed it
- blue News (Keystone-SDA) — the European story: a fast switch from cool to record heat, plus drought and floods.
- The Express Tribune — the global numbers, set beside heat deaths and a hotter outlook for the years ahead.
What we don't know yet: how much a developing El Niño will add to global temperatures later in 2026 and into 2027.