The age of heat storms: how Reuters found the planet’s heatwaves have changed beyond recognition

In the summer of 2026, Europe sweltered. Wildfires tore through Spain and France. And all the while, according to a major Reuters investigation published on 20 October 2026, the world was already inside a single vast weather event that had begun in February — and had by then touched almost three-quarters of the planet’s surface.

Reuters calls it Heat Storm Raimundo. It is not a hurricane or a cyclone. It is a heatwave — but a heatwave of a size and staying power that, the investigation argues, the old word can no longer describe.

“The Age of Heat Storms”, led by veteran investigative journalist Maurice Tamman, is one of the most ambitious pieces of climate journalism of recent years. Reuters consulted two dozen climate researchers and analysed temperature readings for every hour of every day since 1960, across more than a million geographical grid cells covering the globe. The result is a new way of understanding extreme heat — and a warning that the planet has been living inside one continuous storm of heat for more than 18 years.

This article explains what Reuters found, how the investigation worked, what it means for ordinary people, and what scientists still cannot say for certain.

At a glance

What happened: Reuters published “The Age of Heat Storms” on 20 October 2026, a data investigation covering every hour of global temperature records since 1960. It found that giant heat events — which it calls “heat storms” — have gone from about five a year in the 1960s to about 102 a year in this decade, and that at least one has been active somewhere on Earth without a break since July 2008.

Why it matters: Extreme heat is estimated to kill almost half a million people a year, yet heatwaves are rarely named or tracked the way hurricanes are. Reuters argues that naming and tracking them would help people understand the risk — and prepare for it.

What happens next: Reuters has launched a live Heat Storm Tracker that names and follows heat storms in real time, and the current storm, Raimundo, is still active. Scientists will keep testing whether the “heat storm” idea becomes a standard way of describing extreme heat.

What is a heat storm?

There is no single, universally agreed definition of a heatwave. So Reuters, working with climate scientists, created its own. In the investigation’s terms, an ordinary heatwave is five or more consecutive days of abnormally high temperatures in a given place. A heat storm is one of the largest heatwaves: at its peak, it covers at least 1% of the Earth’s surface — an area roughly half the size of Canada.

That 1% threshold matters, because it separates local hot spells from the continent-spanning events that now dominate the record. As Tamman wrote: “To continue calling such sprawling phenomena ‘heat waves’ would be like calling a monsoon a rain shower.”

The idea of naming heat events is not new, but it has never caught on the way naming hurricanes has. Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, told Reuters that naming events is “a powerful way for people to understand that something is happening” — yet “we don’t do that with heat waves”, even though heat has been estimated to kill almost half a million people a year.

More, bigger, and without a break

The investigation’s headline findings are stark.

Heat storms used to be rare. In the 1960s, they averaged about five a year. In this decade, they have averaged about 102 a year — roughly twenty times as many. One of them caused the deadly heat in Europe in the summer of 2026.

They are lasting longer and covering more ground. From the 1960s to this decade, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by more than 30%. Over the same period, the average portion of the planet likely to be covered by heat storms and ordinary heatwaves has risen more than 12-fold, according to Reuters’ analysis.

They now overlap and follow one another without pause. Reuters identified a new pattern it calls “heat storm cascades”: periods in which large heat events run at the same time, one after another, or both. In the 1960s, these cascades lasted an average of roughly two months. By the early 2000s, they lasted about nine months. Then, on 6 July 2008, a cascade began — and it still has not stopped. For more than 18 years straight, at least one heat storm has been active somewhere on the planet, and often more than one.

The biggest one lasted more than a year. Reuters named the largest heat storm on record Heat Storm Vera. It lasted for 367 days across 2023 and 2024 and swept over nearly 85% of the globe. At its peak, on 5 January 2024, it covered approximately 31.3% of the Earth’s surface — nearly a third of the planet at once.

We are inside one right now. The world is currently in the grip of Heat Storm Raimundo, which began on 28 February 2026. According to Reuters, it broiled Europe and fuelled massive wildfires in Spain and France during the summer of 2026, and by 20 October it had touched almost three-quarters of the planet’s surface. Its peak coverage reached approximately 33.8% of the globe on 28 August 2026 — even larger than Vera’s peak.

The human cost: three stories from one storm

The investigation does not only deal in numbers. Reuters tells the story of Vera through the people and places it touched — a deliberate choice, because the reporters wanted to show that a single global event can have very different local consequences.

In Texas, in the United States, 17-year-old high school football captain Justice Trumpler invited college recruiters to watch him play. In 100-degree Fahrenheit heat (about 38°C), he began vomiting without stopping and ended up in hospital. His story is the face of a danger that is easy to underestimate: heat illness can strike a fit, healthy teenager in the middle of an ordinary afternoon.

In the Amazon, hundreds of pink river dolphins died as the water they lived in heated to extremes. Reuters described the deaths as a “circus of death” — a phrase that captures how shocking the scenes were to the scientists who witnessed them. It is worth noting the caution Reuters itself applies here: scientists say that attributing a specific wildlife die-off to one weather event requires evidence about local conditions and other contributing factors. Reuters presents the dolphin deaths within the wider context of Vera’s reach and the extreme conditions affecting the region, rather than claiming a single proven cause.

In Ivory Coast, a cocoa farmer saw his livelihood destroyed as extreme heat damaged production. Cocoa is one of the world’s most heat-sensitive major crops, and Ivory Coast is the world’s largest producer — so what happens to its harvests affects chocolate prices far beyond West Africa.

These three stories, from three continents, were all part of the same 367-day event. That is the point Reuters is making: the old picture of heatwaves as small, local and short-lived no longer matches reality.

How the investigation was done

Investigative journalism is often associated with leaked documents and secret sources. This investigation was different: its raw material was data — a huge amount of it.

Reuters analysed hourly temperature data going back to 1960, covering more than one million geographical grid cells. That means the team could track, hour by hour and place by place, how heat built up, moved and overlapped across 66 years. It consulted two dozen meteorologists and climate researchers to design the method and check the findings.

As part of the series, Reuters also created an online Heat Storm Tracker that names and follows heat storms in real time. It is now a feature of the Reuters Climate Monitor, which the agency describes as offering ways to understand major weather events and measure how the planet is warming.

Why this matters — including for Pakistan

For readers in Pakistan, the findings are not abstract. Pakistan is one of the countries most exposed to extreme heat. In 2022, the country suffered a searing heatwave followed by catastrophic floods; in 2024, temperatures in parts of Sindh approached 50°C, and heat-related deaths were reported in Karachi and elsewhere. The Reuters investigation suggests that such events are no longer isolated emergencies but part of a continuous global pattern.

The investigation also matters because of what it says about how we talk about heat. Hurricanes get names, tracking maps and wall-to-wall coverage. Heatwaves — which, by the estimate cited by Reuters, kill almost half a million people a year — usually get a temperature reading and a health advisory, and then the news moves on. Reuters’ argument is that this gap in attention is itself dangerous: people cannot prepare for a threat they do not fully understand.

There are practical consequences too. Longer, overlapping heat events strain power grids as air conditioning demand stays high for months rather than days. They damage crops over whole growing seasons rather than a single bad week. They affect outdoor workers, schoolchildren, the elderly and people without access to cooling — the groups least able to protect themselves.

What scientists still cannot say

A careful investigation also says what it does not know, and Reuters’ reporting is careful on several points.

First, a “heat storm” is Reuters’ own term, not an official scientific classification. The investigation developed the definition in consultation with scientists, but weather agencies such as the World Meteorological Organization have not adopted it. Whether the term catches on will depend on whether other scientists and news organisations find it useful.

Second, the investigation links the rise in heat storms to rising greenhouse gas emissions — carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is up more than 30% since the 1960s — but it does not claim that any single storm was caused by climate change alone. Individual heat events always have local causes too, and attributing a specific event requires detailed analysis of local conditions.

Third, the human stories illustrate Vera’s reach, but the investigation does not claim that every impact during those 367 days had one single cause. The dolphin deaths in the Amazon, for example, happened during extreme heat, but scientists caution that a full explanation requires evidence about water levels, disease and other local factors as well.

These cautions do not weaken the central finding. They are part of what makes it trustworthy: the investigation shows its working, names its limits, and lets the data speak.

Frequently asked questions

What is a heat storm?

According to Reuters’ investigation, a heat storm is a very large heatwave: at its peak, it covers at least 1% of the Earth’s surface, an area roughly half the size of Canada. An ordinary heatwave, in the investigation’s definition, is five or more consecutive days of abnormally high temperatures. The term “heat storm” was created by Reuters in consultation with climate scientists; it is not yet an official term used by weather agencies.

How much more common have heat storms become?

Reuters found that heat storms averaged about five a year in the 1960s. In this decade, they have averaged about 102 a year. The average portion of the planet covered by heat storms and heatwaves has risen more than 12-fold since the 1960s, while carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by more than 30%.

What was Heat Storm Vera?

Vera was the largest heat storm on record. It lasted 367 days over 2023–2024, swept over nearly 85% of the globe, and at its peak on 5 January 2024 covered about 31.3% of the Earth’s surface. Reuters traced its effects from a hospitalised school footballer in Texas to dying river dolphins in the Amazon and a ruined cocoa harvest in Ivory Coast.

Are we in a heat storm now?

Yes, according to Reuters. Heat Storm Raimundo began on 28 February 2026, fuelled wildfires in Spain and France in the summer of 2026, and had touched almost three-quarters of the planet by 20 October 2026. Its peak coverage of about 33.8% of the globe on 28 August 2026 was larger than Vera’s peak.

What is a heat storm cascade?

A cascade is a period in which large heat events run at the same time, one after another, or both — leaving little or no break between them. Cascades averaged about two months in the 1960s and about nine months by the early 2000s. The current cascade began on 6 July 2008 and has not stopped: for more than 18 years, at least one heat storm has been active somewhere on Earth.

Why name heat storms like hurricanes?

Reuters argues that naming helps people understand that something is happening. Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale University told Reuters that naming is “a powerful way for people to understand that something is happening”, yet heatwaves — despite killing an estimated half a million people a year — are not named. Reuters has launched a live Heat Storm Tracker to name and follow heat storms in real time.

Does this prove climate change caused a specific heatwave?

No single weather event can be blamed on climate change alone. The investigation shows that as greenhouse gas emissions have risen, giant heat events have become far more frequent, larger and longer-lasting. That is evidence of a changing climate, but attributing any one event requires separate, detailed analysis.

Conclusion

The most unsettling finding in Reuters’ investigation is not a number. It is a date: 6 July 2008. That was the day the current cascade of heat storms began — and, according to Reuters’ analysis, it has never ended. For more than 18 years, somewhere on Earth, a heat storm has been raging. For most of that time, almost nobody noticed, because we had no name for it and no map that showed it.

Now we do. Whether the term “heat storm” becomes part of everyday language will matter less than whether the idea behind it does: that extreme heat is no longer a local, passing emergency, but a permanent, planetary condition that demands the same attention — and the same preparation — as any hurricane.

The heat is not coming. According to Reuters, it never left.

This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.

Sources

• Reuters, “Meet the heat storm: 7 takeaways from our investigation that gave supersized heat waves a new name”, by Maurice Tamman, 20 October 2026 — https://duke.fm/2026/10/20/meet-the-heat-storm-7-takeaways-from-our-investigation-that-gave-supersized-heat-waves-a-new-name/ (syndicated from Reuters)
• Reuters, “The Age of Heat Storms” investigation, by Maurice Tamman, 20 October 2026 (Reuters Investigates)
• Covering Climate Now, “When the Term ‘Heatwave’ Is No Longer Enough”, 22 October 2026 — https://coveringclimatenow.org/from-us-story/when-the-term-heatwave-is-no-longer-enough/
• Situation Report, “What is a heat storm? Here are key findings from Reuters’ investigation” — https://situationreport.net/news/what-is-a-heat-storm-here-are-key-findings-from-reuters-investigation/