The hottest day ever recorded on the planet was this past Sunday, July 21.
July 21, 2024 came in at 62.76 degrees Fahrenheit (17.09 degrees Celsius). It was the hottest day on Earth since at least 1940, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
The previous record was set last July, coming in at 17.08 degrees Celsius. Global climate records are typically broken by very small margins, fractions of a degree. In this case, it was just 0.01 degrees Celsius above 2023’s record.
This considers all the overnight temperatures and the afternoon temperatures averaged across the globe.
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Locally, Miami tied the daily warm-low record of 82 degrees previously set last year (2023) on July 21. The afternoon daily high temp reached 93 degrees. In Fort Lauderdale, the day started at 80 degrees and topped out at 90 degrees, and neither broke daily records.
These were not record-breaking temps locally, but globally, the heat wave allowed for the record to be broken collectively.
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Hundreds of cities across the United States have experienced record heat for an elongated period already this summer. This has been the hottest summer on record for the Western U.S. and the Northeast while global heat waves also hit Europe and Russia.
The global average temperatures are known to peak during the summer months in the northern hemisphere – June through August.
Before 2023, the warmest global temperature was 0.3 degrees cooler, which is significant.
Human-caused climate change has an increasing likelihood of record-breaking heat and continues to be a driving factor for other extreme weather events.
