Summer 2026 was Netherlands’ hottest ever recorded

The summer of 2026 was the warmest in the Netherlands since national records began in 1901, figures from the KNMI weather service show.

The average temperature at the KNMI’s benchmark station in De Bilt reached 19.3° over the three summer months, beating the previous record (set in 2018) of 18.9° by nearly half a degree. With August almost over, the record is already beyond reach, broadcaster NOS reported.

In June the KNMI issued its first-ever code red warning for extreme heat, a level not triggered even during the record temperatures of 2019. The country then went through multiple heatwaves, and the public health institute RIVM has linked at least 900 excess deaths to the June spell alone.

The nights were also extremely hot. In Maastricht, the temperature stayed above 22° for three nights running for the first time, which has never been recorded anywhere in the Netherlands before, even over two nights.

Peter Siegmund, a climate expert at the KNMI, told NOS that a summer this warm can now be expected roughly once every five years in the current climate – an interval he expects to shorten as warming continues.

Under the KNMI’s highest climate scenario, he said, a summer of this kind would be an average one by around 2050.