Back in the saddle after a week off, during which I managed to catch a vacation cold, which I converted into an extra day off. But the good news is that despite the dreary skies - or rather because of them - we have returned to find a beneficially wet April underway. Writing about the drought two weeks ago seems to have helped. No charge.

The rain total for the month so far at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport stands at 2.76 inches. That's 1.44 inches wetter than the average April (through the 13th). Most of that rain has come from two very wet days - on the 3rd (1.55 inches) and on Saturday (0.87 inch). My new cherry tree seems quite happy.

Here are some daily totals from across the state. They've seen more than an inch in the last 24 hours in parts of Southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore, where they need the rain most. We've had more like a third- to a half-inch around Baltimore in the last 24 hours.

Keep your umbrallas handy. The forecast promises still more rain through Wednesday night - more than an inch of additional moisture - and maybe as much as two if we get lucky. That could make this the first month in Baltimore with a surplus of precipitation since last September. Depending on when you start counting, we are still working with as much as a 6-inch rainfall deficit. The total deficit since Jan. 1, 2009 is almost 4 inches. The slow, soaking nature of this precip helps even more than a heavy downburst would.

We can thank a low-pressure center just to our south and west. Its counter-clockwise spin is drawing cool, wet air in off the Atlantic Ocean. We'll get still more rain in the next 24 hours as the low moves off the coast and drags still more marine moisture our way, along with increasing winds into the late evening Wednesday.

It's all good, though. The rain we're getting this month should help Maryland's farmers get their planting done and get the seeds germinated properly. What's really needed now are some sustained surpluses to bring the water tables and streamflows back where they need to be to set up for summer.

All this and a good extended weekend forecast, too: Forecasters out at Sterling are predicting sunny skies from Thursday through Sunday, with highs in the 60s. Then another storm system could bring more rain by Sunday night into Monday.