GLOBAL WEATHER HIGHLIGHTS

JULY 2026

AFRICA

Floods in Côte d’Ivoire have killed 59 people since May, the communication minister told a cabinet meeting in Abidjan. There are fears the toll could further rise as rescue teams continue to search for victims during the rainy season, which runs from May until July, the minister, Amadou Coulibaly, added. The deaths are the latest in coastal west Africa, which is enduring relentless, deadly rains that authorities predict could intensify in the coming days. Footage emerged on social media of neighborhoods submerged in water as residents waded through in search of drier areas.

UNITED STATES

A woman was found dead in Missouri on Saturday after heavy rainfall battered parts of the state the previous day, forcing numerous emergency rescues and evacuations, including at a summer camp with more than 200 children. The body of Faith Gregory, who went missing in Missouri’s Crawford County after her home was swept away from its foundation, was found by volunteers late Saturday morning. Her body was discovered about 1.8 miles (3km) downstream from her residence in Huzzah Creek, according to the county sheriff’s office. “This is not the outcome that any of us were hoping for,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with Faith’s family, friends, and all those affected by this tragic loss.”

Saturday is delivering a double dose of dangerous weather across the north-eastern US, with smoky skies from Canadian wildfires giving way to severe thunderstorms that have already triggered a flash flood warning as torrential rain pounds parts of the region.

After a brief break on Friday, smoke from the wildfires returned to New York City and surrounding communities on Saturday, sending air quality back into unhealthy levels.

Conditions are expected to improve as shifting winds push the smoke away gradually, but those same changing conditions are fueling a new threat: strong to severe thunderstorms that are expected to sweep across much of the region, clearing the haze while bringing the potential for dangerous weather. The first wave of powerful storms moved through northern New Jersey and New York City on Saturday, prompting a flash flood warning through 2 pm. Videos shared on social media showed water pouring into parts of the city’s vulnerable infrastructure, including Penn Station. By the afternoon, more than 2.5in (6cm) of rain had fallen in some locations, with flooding either underway or expected in areas covered by the warning. Neighborhoods including Jamaica, Crown Heights, Forest Hills, Ozone Park, Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, Woodside and Greenpoint were among those affected.

At least two people have died as “life-threatening” flooding takes hold in south-central Texas, where up to 28in of rain has already fallen in some areas – just a year after the same region endured catastrophic flooding that killed more than 100 people. Flash-flood emergencies were issued on Thursday for parts of Kerr and Uvalde counties, where emergency crews performed water rescues, and areas around the Guadalupe River and the Pedernales River, according to morning updates from the National Weather Service (NWS). Rescuers have been plucking stranded drivers and people trapped in homes since flood waters began rising quickly overnight on Thursday. “This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!” reads an update from the NWS in San Antonio. “Life-threatening flash flooding of low water crossings, small creeks and streams, urban areas, highways, streets and underpasses.”

EUROPE

The scorching heatwave conditions experienced by much of England and Wales will last until at least next week, the Met Office has said. Temperatures in parts of England and Wales will continue to exceed 30C on Sunday and into next week, the forecaster said. While a risk of thunderstorms could develop in parts of the south from Monday, most areas are expected to stay dry, sunny and very hot into the coming week. A provisional maximum daily temperature of 33C was recorded in Yelverton in Devon on Saturday, the Met Office said.

It said 2026 was the first year in which temperatures of 35C were recorded in the UK on six days. Five days were recorded with temperatures over 35C in 1976 and 2020.

When David Olivares went to bed on Thursday night, tired from a four-hour motorbike ride, the fire creeping towards his home town of Robledo de Chavela seemed a distant menace.

He woke up the next day, saw the white smoke behind the mountains and decided the threat to Robledo, which lies 30 miles (50km) west of Madrid, had probably receded. The feeling of idle security would not last long. A second look at the horizon revealed the white smoke was beginning to give way to black. David Olivares. Photograph: Sam Jones/The Guardian

“Then I saw the fire at the top of the mountain,” said the 27-year-old as he ate a sandwich in the leisure center to which he had been evacuated in Las Rozas, a municipality on the north-western outskirts of the Spanish capital. “It started to spread down the mountain, and then I got the emergency alert on my phone at about 5.30 pm, telling us we had to leave.” Even so, he wasn’t unduly panicked. “I thought to myself, come on, it’s 2026 – the firefighters will get it under control with all their drones and planes,” he said. “But that wasn’t the case.” Just as his mother told him they needed to leave, Olivares looked up at the sky, which had also begun to change. “It turned orange and looked very apocalyptic,” he said. “Then there was black smoke in Robledo, and you could see the fire. People were shouting – a kid was screaming to his dad: ‘Let’s go now’ – and there were cars and people everywhere. It felt like the end of the world. We grabbed our three cats, got in the car and left.” María Rosa Marín, a fellow evacuee from the nearby town of Valdemaqueda, nodded along at the recollection. “The sun was so strange; you could hardly see it. It looked like something from the Bible,” she said. On a cushion next to her lay her dog, Jeffery, who dozed on, blissfully unconcerned at finding himself so far from home and under such dramatic circumstances.

Parts of Wales are now in drought, and all other areas of the country are experiencing prolonged dry conditions, with this month on course to be the driest on record for nearly 200 years. Natural Resources Wales (NRW) said on Thursday that record-low river flows, back-to-back heatwaves and widespread wildfires have prompted the declaration of drought status in north Wales and the Upper Severn. As of Thursday, several fires were still burning across the country after more than a week, leading the Welsh government to activate “crisis” plans amid concerns over a lack of firefighting helicopters. The declaration of drought in Wales comes as a new scientific analysis finds that extreme heat, supercharged by the human-caused climate crisis, is sucking Europe dry in summer and intensifying the drought hitting the continent.

Deadly wildfires have raged through Spain and France, and rivers are running low across Europe. On Monday, the National Drought Group – the members of which include the Met Office, the National Farmers’ Union, water companies and expert bodies – declared parts of southern, central and eastern England to be in “prolonged dry weather”.

CANADA

Fresh wildfires have broken out in western Canada, and forests continued to ⁠burn in Ontario as the country ⁠battled what the prime ​minister, Mark Carney, called one of the most intense wildfire seasons on record. Nearly 34,000 lightning strikes over the past week led to a series of fires ⁠and evacuation orders in southern British Columbia. There were 25 evacuation orders and 90 active wildfires in the province as of Friday morning, and authorities said warming ⁠and drying conditions could cause them to grow. Hugh Murdoch, the incident commander of a cluster of fires near Kimberley, 320 miles (520km) from Vancouver, said: “The weather forecast is far from favorable. There is no significant ​help from Mother Nature whatsoever in the foreseeable ‌future.” Wildfires fueled by intense heat and ‌lightning storms attributed to warmer temperatures have burned remote forests across Canada this summer. Smoke from them drifted across large parts of the US east coast and midwestern cities last week.

MIDDLE EAST

Rescue crews in Afghanistan are searching for survivors and bodies among the rubble of houses destroyed by devastating flash floods that authorities said had killed nearly two dozen people and left more than 100 people missing. The Afghanistan national disaster management authority said on Tuesday that 23 people had died, 80 had been injured, and more than 100 were missing after floods struck the eastern province of Nuristan on Monday, causing an undetermined number of buildings to collapse. The provincial capital city of Parun was among the areas affected, authorities said. More extreme weather has been forecast, with heavy rain, thunderstorms, strong winds accompanied by dust and sand, and flash floods predicted in 10 of the country’s 34 provinces, the ministry of transport and civil aviation’s meteorology department said on Monday evening. The ministry warned people to avoid riverbanks and other areas at risk of flooding.

ASIA

Large parts of Asia were hit by devastating flooding and landslides last week, leading to multiple deaths, as torrential rain battered Vietnam, southern China and South Korea.

According to the National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting in Vietnam, the Phuc Than weather station recorded 206mm of rain in 24 hours, from last Thursday into Friday, which caused homes to be swept away, power cuts and destroyed 238 hectares (588 acres) of farmland. Flash flooding swept through the village of Muong Than in southern Vietnam early on Friday morning, causing the deaths of at least four people and leaving four others missing. South Korea also had rainfall totals reaching almost 200 mm, with a station in Paju, just to the north of Seoul, recording 192.5mm, causing homes and roads to become flooded.

TROPICAL

Typhoon Noul made landfall early Sunday, bringing strong winds and heavy rain to southern China, including Hong Kong, over the weekend. It prompted the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people in Guangdong province, with the region on high alert and hundreds of flights cancelled. The typhoon – the strongest to make landfall in China so far this year – will dump heavy to torrential rains across much of southern China for two days, authorities said, after ⁠sweeping the province of ⁠Guangdong ​and neighboring Hong Kong with gale-force winds. China declared its highest alert for flash floods ⁠in several provinces. The ⁠year’s 12th tropical cyclone and China’s third this month, Noul, which ​means the glow of sunrise ‌or sunset in Korean, struck ‌the coast of Huidong county about 3.50 am, officials ‌said.

Tropical Storm Bertha made landfall in Louisiana on Wednesday afternoon, and is moving westward toward the Texas coast, where it is expected to reach later on Thursday, bringing rainfall, winds and rising water levels. In a Thursday morning update, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said that Bertha was moving west and that the center of the tropical storm was expected to move near or along the Louisiana and upper Texas coasts over the next several hours before moving inland over Texas on Thursday evening.

The tropical storm’s maximum sustained winds remain near 45mph (75km/h), with higher gusts. Forecasters said Bertha was expected to maintain tropical storm strength until it reaches the upper Texas coast later on Thursday, and that the system was then expected to dissipate inland over Texas late Thursday night or Friday.