July 2026 tied with 2024 as the warmest July on record, globally: global surface temperatures ran 2.12°F (1.18°C) above the 20th-century average.[1] The ocean set its own record — the highest July ocean temperature on record at 1.84°F (1.02°C), the first July to surpass +1.8°F (+1.0°C).[1] North America, Africa and Asia each saw their warmest July on record, and global sea ice was the fourth-smallest July extent in the 48-year record.[1]
The driver is already in the forecast. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center reports El Niño strengthening, with sea-surface temperature anomalies past +2.0°C in the eastern equatorial Pacific and a greater than 90% chance of a very strong event during the Northern Hemisphere fall and winter 2026-27.[2] NCEI notes that every top-ranking monthly ocean temperature departure on record occurred during an El Niño episode — and if this one keeps intensifying, it could push 2026 into an even warmer final ranking.[1]
Astronomers have found a thin, curved band of stars unravelling off a globular cluster — a stellar stream — in UGC 9050-Dw1, an ultra-diffuse galaxy 115 million light-years from Earth.[3] Streams like this are common in the Milky Way, where its rotation strips stars from dense clusters, but they were assumed to exist elsewhere yet never actually observed outside our galaxy: they are usually too faint.[3] This galaxy's unusually sparse star field let the stream stand out against a dark background.[3]
Published in Nature on August 12, 2026, the work goes beyond the sighting: because a stream's stars travel nearly the same orbit, shaped by the galaxy's gravity, the authors used it to estimate the galaxy's total mass — and by subtracting the visible matter, to map the dark matter in UGC 9050-Dw1.[3] A new instrument for a substance that has only ever been measured indirectly.
Hurricane Lala was still 65 miles off the Big Island on Saturday when its outer bands began hitting North and South Kohala, Hāmākua, Hilo, Puna and Ka'ū with heavy rain, high winds and flooding.[4] Hawaiian Electric reported 70 mph winds downing power lines: as of 3 p.m. on Aug. 15, about 32,300 customers were without power across Hilo, Kona, Kohala, Hāmākua and Puna, and a 42-mile span of transmission lines was damaged on the Hāmākua coast.[4]
About 130 people, mostly in Kea'au, had moved into county-run shelters. County Mayor Kimo Alameda said the hurricane is not expected to make landfall, though the island sits on the storm's periphery and outages could last hours while crews repair lines.[4]
[1] ncei.noaa.gov/news/global-climate-202607 — NOAA NCEI — Assessing the Global Temperature and Precipitation in July 2026 (2026-08-11)
[2] cpc.ncep.noaa.gov — ENSO Diagnostic Discussion — NOAA Climate Prediction Center (2026-08-13)
[3] universetoday.com — A Rare Extragalactic Stellar Stream Reveals Hidden Dark Matter (2026-08-13)
[4] bigislandnow.com — Hurricane Lala already causing havoc on Big Island (2026-08-15)