"Temperatures are high around this time, but this year was extreme," said Vít Květoň, head of the climatology department at the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute. "This has been the hottest summer since 1900."

The heat caused power outages and withered crops across the country.

The electricity grid overloaded July 25, causing companies to reduce use nationwide and forcing the national grid operator, ČEPS, to declare a state of emergency lasting several hours.

The last time such a situation occurred was in the 1970s, the daily Mladá fronta Dnes reported.

ČEPS said no regular customers lost power.

The overload forced ČEPS to buy electricity from Germany, Poland and Slovakia, costing the company nearly 30 million Kč ($1.3 million), CEO Vladimír Tošovský said.

Several major companies, including Škoda Auto and Mittal Steel, had to temporarily reduce electricity consumption. Some will seek compensation from ČEPS for their losses, which could cost ČEPS several hundred million more crowns in total.

Farmers will see a drop in crop quality this year, said Jan Záhorka, secretary of the Czech Agrarian Chamber. "The grain weighs less and the harvest will be lower as well," he said. "Plus, after the harvest the land will remain dry, and it will be more difficult to cultivate."

In Poland, farmers are predicting that the heat will end up destroying 20 percent of the nation's grain, while Italy reports $637 million in damage to its agriculture economy. German agriculture officials reported a 50 percent loss in agricultural productivity.

Tropical air from the south pushed temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius (96 degrees Fahrenheit) on several days throughout the Czech Republic, breaking records more than 140 years old in Prague. New single-day highs were also set throughout the month in Plzeň, west Bohemia, and Ostrava, north Moravia.

The country typically has one day in July above 30 C. This July, there were 18 days above that mark. However, the heat wave failed to eclipse the single highest temperature on record for the country: 40.2 C, set in 1983.

July temperatures broke records throughout Europe. Poland set 200-year highs, and in the Netherlands the mercury reached its highest point since 1706.

Across Europe, the heat exacted a human toll: At least 90 deaths have been attributed to high temperatures, including more than 70 in France, which was widely seen as responding well to this year's heat wave compared to 2003, when extreme heat left thousands of its citizens dead.

Here in the Czech Republic, authorities are only attributing one death to the heat: a 72-year-old man who fainted and fell from his roof while making home repairs in Radouš, central Bohemia, according to Radio Prague.

The intensity of the heat wave has meteorologists hesitant to say whether it is well and truly over, and what this month has in store.

"I wouldn't dare estimate what the situation will be like in August," Květoň said.