Death Valley breaks 100-year-old record for hottest month ever

There’s hot, and then there’s Death Valley hot.

While Southern California and much of the West cooked in July under a pair of heat waves that killed livestock, knocked out power and encouraged wildfires, nowhere was the heat more brutally enduring than in Death Valley.

According to the National Weather Service, Death Valley National Park broke its 100-year-old record for the hottest month ever in July, when the average temperature was 107.4 degrees, eclipsing the 1917 record of 107.2 degrees.

DEATH VALLEY, CA - JULY 12: Collen Zato and a member of her support team walk to the Whitney Portal during the STYR Labs Badwater 135 on July 12, 2017 in Death Valley, California. The start of the 135 mile race is at Badwater Basin, Death Valley, which marks the lowest elevation in North America at 280 feet below sea level. The race finishes at Whitney Portal at 8,360 feet. The course covers three mountain ranges for a total of 14,600 feet of cumulative vertical ascent. Whitney Portal is the trailhead to the Mt. Whitney summit, the highest point in the contiguous United States. The hottest temperature in the world was recorded in Death Valley with a temperature of 134 degrees (56.6 Celcius). (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) ** OUTS - ELSENT, FPG, CM - OUTS * NM, PH, VA if sourced by CT, LA or MoD **

(Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)

Though 107 degrees doesn’t sound that bad, keep in mind the average includes nighttime temperatures.

The average overnight temperature in Death Valley last month was 95 degrees.

The average daytime high was 119.6 degrees, said meteorologist Alex Boothe.

“It looks like there were a couple of days below 115,” he said — a consolation of some sort.

The hottest day of the month was July 7, when it reached 127 degrees. It also reached that temperature twice in June.

The world record for heat was reached in Death Valley on June 10, 1913 when it reached 134 degrees.

joseph.serna@latimes.com