drier

These slight differences could be enough, experts say, to to allow Joshua trees to continue to survive and reproduce even under a hotter, drier climate that is expected in the coming decades.

For the second year in a row, California is on track to have a record-breaking number of valley fever cases, which public health officials say are driven by longer, drier summers.

With climate change likely to bring hotter, drier summers, the chances of drought could increase in the decades ahead, the Met Office says.

March and April were far drier than normal, with May seeing only 4% of the normal rainfall by the middle of the month.

May, however, has also been drier than average, so far, and March too was dry, the 9th driest March on record.