Dry ground makes it hotter

 

This was the ground in the Cotswolds last week: nothing like green Cumbria. I read an article that suggested that dry ground is making the heat wave worse. It goes like this: water has a higher specific heat capacity so any moisture uses up more energy per unit mass to reach the same temperature as earth. Then the water uses up even more energy turning into water vapour. This means that less energy is available to increase the kinetic energy of air molecules so the temperature can't get as high.