Well, July is finally behind us, and it was a wet one. The bulk of the month's rain, of course, fell on one day - the 2.42-inch deluge on Wednesday, July 23 (see photo). That was the official total at the airport. Other locations will have different numbers. We had only 1.4 inches on the WeatherDeck in Cockeysville, and 1.89 inches here at Calvert & Centre streets (until the weather took our station off-line).

The month's total rainfall came to 5.47 inches at BWI. That was 1.62 inches above the long-term July average for the airport, and it continues what is now a four-month stretch of extra precipitation that has added 7.39 inches of surplus to our totals for BWI.

For the year since January, we are now running a 4.61-inch surplus. Only January and March saw deficits.

July was also notable for its heat. The average temperature for the month at BWI was 77.5 degrees, one degree above the 30-year average. Yesterday, with a high of just 84 degrees at the airport, was the third-coolest day of the month.

At no time in July did the airport fail to top 80 degrees. There were 10 days in the 90s - equal to July 2007. That brings the total for the summer to 19 days - two more than last year. But we're running well behind 2006, when we'd had a total of 24 days in the 90s by the end of July (with 13 more to come in August of that very hot summer).

The airport high for the month was 94 degrees, on the 20th. The low was 59 degrees, on the 25th. The longest stretch of hot weather was a seven-day streak of 90-plus days, between the 16th and the 22nd.

Only five days in July were rated as cloudy. Two were clear. The rest were "partly cloudy."

We're two-thirds of the way through the meteorological summer now, but only one-third through the hurricane season, which doesn't peak for another month. So far, so good. Look for a chance for showers or thunderstorms Saturday and Saturday evening. Otherwise, we seem to be stuck in a long stretch of sunny days, with highs near 90 degrees. Sunday will be the best of the batch - sunny and 86 if the forecast holds up.

Watch Sunday's paper for details on a nice pass by the International Space Station, which will fly almost directly over Baltimore - very bright - on Tuesday evening Aug. 5, and then vanish. The long-range forecast calls for mostly cloudy skies that night. We'll see.