How Much Hotter is it Now?

 I cannot choose one hundred best books because I have written only five - Oscar Wilde

Climate Monitor is a new app just launched by Reuters, the British news agency The app provides a snapshot of how much hotter or colder today will be for your location (e.g. Hereford, UK) compared with the normal (or expected) temperature for today. The normal daily high temperature is calculated from the 1961-1990 ERA5 reanalysis dataset. For people of a certain age (i.e. me), this is a highly relevant comparison as the 1961-1990 period covers my childhood and early adult years. And we all like to compare & contrast our current situation with how we fondly remember our childhood!

Figure 1 is a screen dump from Climate Monitor for Hereford on the 9th July 2026. It shows today's predicted daily maximum temperature (31 ℃) is 11.4 ℃ above the normal daily maximum for the 9-10th July (based on the 1961-1990 climatic period). This is a huge difference (20 ℉) albeit supercharged by the the current heatwave affecting the UK.

Figure 1: Climate Monitor Screen Dump for Hereford on 9th July 2026

As I am writing this blog post at 11 o'clock in the morning, the temperature outside is already 28 ℃ and rising. Today's maximum temperature, based on yesterday's hourly data, should occur around 4-5 pm with an estimate of 34-35 ℃; that is 14-15 ℃ above normal!!

There is more information presented by in the freely available Climate Monitor app. For example, the 'How This Year Compares' inset in Figure 1 graphically represents how the monthly average temperatures in 2026 have deviated from the 1961-1990 norm. For Hereford, apart from January (0.6 ℃ higher), all the other months have been 2.9 ℃ to 3.6 ℃ higher than normal. There is a very strong possibility that 2026 will be a new record hottest year for Hereford.

Table 1 (also from Climate Monitor) summarises the Continental mean for high temperatures (and their anomalies) on July 9th 2026. All continents are warming but Europe is warming fastest. Interestingly, the  North American continent is one of the slowest warming continents. Does this explain why climate denial (i.e. the refusal to accept the scientific consensus that human-caused global warming/climate change is a fact) is more prevalent in the USA? Things are never as simple as that but it may be a factor along with electing a narcissistic senile bully with a low IQ.

Table 1: Continental Averages for Maximum Daily Temperature (9th July 2026)