Fifth Warmest Month Globally, Extreme Weather Hits Europe

Outside the continent, warmer-than-average temperatures occurred across the United States, northeast Canada, West Asia, central Asia, and east Antarctica; in contrast, cold conditions occurred across Alaska, northern Canada, Greenland, and northern Russia.

Meanwhile, the winter in the continent was one of the two coldest winters in the last 13 years at 0.09°C above the 1991-2020 average.

“For Europe, the past winter Boreal winter temperatures largely reflected the regional contrasts in temperature and precipitation anomalies experienced in February,” according to the statement. 

The average sea surface temperature (SST) for February 2026 over 60°S-60°N was 20.88°C, the joint second-highest value on record for the month (with February 2025), and 0.18°C below the January 2024 record.  

“There was a notable SST gradient between cold SSTs in the central and west North Atlantic and warm SSTs in the subtropical North Atlantic which likely favoured the development of storms that reached Europe,” according to Copernicus.  

Arctic sea ice

The average Arctic sea ice extent in February was five per cent below average, ranking third lowest on record for the month.

“Regionally, sea ice cover was below average in the Labrador Sea, Baffin Bay and the Sea of Okhotsk. It was unusually high in the Greenland Sea, where sea ice extent reached a 22-year high for February,” the statement highlighted.

In the Antarctic, the monthly sea ice extent was close to average for February, in sharp contrast to the much below-average extents (25 per cent to 33 per cent below average) observed over the past four years.

“Daily Antarctic sea ice extent likely reached its summer minimum on 22 February. This minimum was near the middle of the range for the past 48 years, in contrast to the record or near-record lows of the previous four years. The lowest minimum occurred in 2023,” according to the statement.