A group of tourists with bottles of water last July. | DANIEL ESPINOSA

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This July was the second hottest since current records began. Aemet reports that the average temperature was 26.7C, which was 1.8 degrees higher than normal. The July average was slightly lower than in 2015 when, as an example, the average temperature recorded at the Son Sant Joan Airport weather station was 27.7C; this year it was 27.2C.

Records were not broken for high temperatures last month. The historical maximum that is normally quoted was 44.2C in Muro in July 1994. This July's maximum was 40.6C in Montuiri on the seventh, the same day that temperatures above 40 were registered at various other weather stations - Binissalem, Calvia and the university.

Aemet's Bernat Amengual says that the temperatures in July are directly related to climate change and that longer periods of very high temperatures can be expected in the future.

Rainfall last month was an average 4.5 litres per square metre, which was lower than the seven litres historical average. Last Sunday, there was an isolated and very heavy downpour in Sant Llorenç; this registered 44 litres.