June arrives tomorrow dragging plenty of baggage. Some of you may even remember one of the weirdest Junes on record in Baltimore - 1972. More on that in a second.

First, the new month brings the official opening of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season. Expect to read a lot about growing fears of a big Northeast hurricane. It's not that anyone's predicted one. It's rather that it's been so long since the last one that we've grown comfortable about the prospect, and we've moved millions of people and billions of dollars in coastal development into the path of a storm that is sure to strike, eventually, if not this summer. Those people should read up on the 1938 hurricane, and the 22-foot storm surges that swept away Long Island homes and flooded some cities on the south coast of New England.

The Wall Street Journal has an important story today (sorry, you'll need to buy a paper or subscribe for web access) about growing anxiety among insurance companies. Some, stung by losses in Florida and the Gulf Coast in the past two years, have stopped writing property insurance policies in vulnerable areas of the Northeast. That, or they're hiking premiums like crazy.

June also brings the year's first really hot temperatures. Not that yesterday's high of 95 degrees at BWI-Marshall was anything to sneeze at. But it fell short of the 98-degree record for a May 30 at BWI, set in 1991.

The record high for June in Baltimore is 105 degrees, set back on June 29, 1934, when the official station was in downtown Baltimore. The average daytime highs climb from 79 degrees on June 1, to 86 degrees by the 30th. The average lows move from 57 degrees to 64 degrees.

The coolest temperature on record for Baltimore in June was 40 degrees, set on June 11, 1972. Which brings us to the matter of 1972, perhaps the strangest June here in recent memory. That cold June morning in 1972 was followed by another record on June 12, when the low reached 46. Was it a harbinger?

The remnants of Hurricane Agnes - by then a tropical storm - began dropping huge volumes of rain across the region on June 21.  That came after five days of relatively light rain, which helped to saturate the soil and cause devastating runoff and flooding when the storm struck.

In all, it rained for 10 days straight, with terrible consequences all up and down the East Coast. Nineteen people died in Maryland alone. The totals set records for two days - 2.19 inches on the 21st, and 3.84 inches the next day. By month's end, 9.95 inches had fallen, also a record. And right behind the storm came more record cool weather, setting a new low mark of 50 degrees on June 24.

A recap of a very dry May here, tomorrow.