Remember when Qatar was awarded the World Cup and everyone said it would be too hot? Well, turns out that’s not the case. Qatar moved their cup to the winter months to go to cooler temps. In the summer, Qatar can reach 104°F (40°C). Even with the shift to cooler months, daytime temperatures during matches still ran around 91–93°F, which is part of why every stadium was also fitted with a purpose-built cooling system to hold the pitch at a constant ~68°F regardless of the forecast.

Now, North America is seeing a heat advisory during the World Cup run which puts those temperatures to shame.

The 2026 World Cup, spread across the United States, Mexico, and Canada, is on pace to be the hottest World Cup on record for ambient air temperature. A Round of 16 match in Philadelphia hit 102°F with a heat index of 110°F, topping the previous highs of 93°F set in both Russia 2018 (Volgograd) and Qatar 2022 (Doha’s outdoor air). Monterrey and Kansas City have posted similarly extreme conditions, while Vancouver, the tournament’s mildest host city, has stayed a comfortable 64°F.

The pattern breaks from the last two decades: Qatar 2022 saw comparable outdoor heat but neutralized it by moving the tournament to winter and air-conditioning every stadium to a constant 68°F, while Brazil 2014 and South Africa 2010 ran cooler overall, with South Africa’s winter calendar producing the coldest World Cup match ever recorded (−1°C on the pitch in Johannesburg). This year, with most U.S. venues open-air and uncooled, the heat is reaching players and fans directly rather than being engineered away.

Here’s an interactive HTML dashboard showing the extreme World Cup temperatures this year.