From Argentina to Australia to South Africa, record heat and raging wildfires are rampaging through the Southern Hemisphere at the start of 2026, with scientists predicting that even more extreme temperatures could lie ahead – and possibly another global annual high – after three of the hottest years on record.
In January, a record-setting heat dome enveloped Australia, sending temperatures near 50C while heat and catastrophic wildfires gripped parts of South America, setting remote parts of Argentina’s Patagonia ablaze and killing 21 people in coastal towns in Chile.
In addition, South Africa has been experiencing its worst wildfires in years.
The extremes are occurring even as the world remains under the cooling influence of a weak La Nina, a climate cycle marked by cooler waters in the central and eastern Pacific that began in December 2024.
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