Nights offering little escape from the heat may become the defining feature of the UAE’s July, as forecasters point to unusually warm overnight temperatures and thickening humidity along the coast.
The National Centre of Meteorology (NCM) has placed the likelihood of El Niño conditions taking hold between July and November 2026 at 98 per cent. Across those months, the centre expects both temperatures and rainfall to sit at or slightly above what the season normally delivers.
That warming pattern, driven by higher surface temperatures across the central and eastern Pacific, carries a particular concern for the Gulf. The NCM has stopped short of forecasting a definite result for the UAE, but it pointed out that past El Niño years have tended to weaken the northwesterly winds that ordinarily bring some summer cooling to the region. Should the same hold true, the sea breezes residents rely on for relief may prove scarce this month.
The trend was already visible in the NCM’s late-June bulletins, which put inland maximums as high as 48°C alongside muggy nights and the possibility of coastal fog. Forecasters expect July to carry that pattern forward, and possibly sharpen it.
AccuWeather’s month-long outlook fills in the picture emirate by emirate. Dubai is projected to see daytime highs swing between 39°C and 44°C, settling around an average of 41°C, while nighttime lows hover near 32°C and seldom fall much under 31°C. Abu Dhabi’s highs are pegged between 39°C and 43°C, also averaging 41°C, with lows closer to 29°C. Sharjah tracks broadly with Dubai, its historical averages for the period showing highs near 41°C and lows around 26°C.
Al Ain stands out as an exception in AccuWeather’s numbers. The inland city is forecast to see highs between just 34°C and 37°C, averaging 36°C, a range that runs cooler than its usual billing as one of the hottest spots in the country. Elsewhere in the north, NCM bulletins from late June logged national maximums of 35°C to 42°C, with the east coast staying comparatively mild and the Fujairah mountains catching occasional light rain.
What the thermometer reads and what residents actually feel are likely to diverge sharply. AccuWeather’s RealFeel measure, which accounts for humidity, has repeatedly landed several degrees above the true air temperature in coastal cities. Dubai has seen RealFeel figures climb to 45°C while the actual reading sat in the high 30s, and Abu Dhabi has recorded RealFeel values in the mid-40s under comparable conditions.
