A huge, shiny yellow orb appeared in the sky over Maryland today. It rose above the horizon in the east, easily the brightest object in the sky - which itself had turned an astonishing shade of blue. And somehow the air itself seemed drier. And that familiar gurgling in the gutters stopped, leaving an eerie silence...

OK. I'll stop.

The rain ended not long after midnight last night at BWI-Marshall. The final tally at the airport: 1.17 inches on Tuesday, topping off six straight days of rain that totaled an official 5.38 inches. Of course that doesn't reflect much higher amounts - a doubling in some cases - in places like Bel Air, Hyattsville, Ellicott City, and Federalsburg. Here's the tally through 7 a.m. today.

We recorded another 0.79 inch on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville in the 24 hours ending at 7 a.m. this morning. That brings the storm total since last Friday's early morning thunderstorm to 5.95 inches. The June total stands at 7.42 inches.

That compares to 6.73 inches for June at BWI-Marshall, which is 3.66 inches above their long-term average, but far from an all-time record. That mark still stands at 9.95 inches, set back in June 1972, in the wake of Tropical Storm Agnes.

And as wet as it's been over the last week, one only needs to look back as far as last October to find a wetter month in Baltimore. The rains in October totaled 9.23 inches, more than 6 inches above the long-term average. That total was swollen by the rains from the remnants of Tropical Storm Tammy, which blew through on Oct. 6-8. That storm dropped 6.72 inches at the airport in just three days, arguably worse than our latest drubbing.

The overnight rains caused plenty of problems, but they don't seem to have measured up to forecasters' warnings yesterday afternoon of 3 to 5 inches of additional accumulations. The storm center that came ashore in North Carolina swept up the coast pretty quickly, and the dry air moved in right behind it, capping the precipitation in the early morning hours.

It wasn't true everywhere. Annapolis and Martinsburg, W.Va. each reported more than 3 inches of rain in the 24 hours ending at about 8 a.m. today. But elsewhere the tallies were smaller.

Hagerstown:  1.87 inches

Salisbury:  1.78 inches

Maryland Science Center: 1.75 inches

Andrews AFB:  0.53 inches

It made our Page One headline today ("Rain Not Done Here Yet") seem a bit behind the facts as readers awoke to bright sunshine. That's a constant hazard when you're writing weather stories 12 hours before they land on readers' doorsteps.

That's not to say the consequences of this six-day deluge are behind us. Officials remain worried about a leaking dam in Montgomery County and rising water along the lower Susquehanna - which this morning does not look as dire as it did in yesterday's forecasts. Several Marylanders are dead or missing in flood waters. And thousands of residents are grappling with flooded basements, and the damage from leaky roofs. It's quite bad enough, thank you. But it could have been worse.