It won't be official until all of today's numbers are in. But it looks from here like July 2011 will finish tonight as the hottest July on record for Baltimore.

Through Saturday, the average temperature for the month at BWI-Marshall Airport in July was 81.6 degrees. If that holds, it will place this month ahead of the current three-way tie for the hottest July - 81.5 degrees - set in 1872 and matched in 1995 and 2010. Third place would go to 1934 and 1949, at 81.4 degrees.

UPDATE 12 noon: The NWS says the average temperature for July was 81.7 degrees at BWI-Marshall Airport. That makes it the hottest July on record for Baltimore. The long-term average for July is 76.5 degrees. Earlier post resumes below. 

July 2011 is ending with a streak of 90-plus weather that has lasted 15 days, the third-longest such streak on record for Baltimore. The long-range forecast calls for a high of 89 next Saturday. If it proves accurate, that would end the streek at 20 consecutive days in the 90s, just short of the second-longest on record - 21 days.  

July 2011 also included four days of 100-plus weather at BWI, peaking at 106 degree on July 22. The 106-degree high was a record for BWI, but not for the city. A 107-degree reading downtown on July 10, 1936 remains the official record high for Baltimore. A 108-degree high at the Maryland Science Center on the 22nd, while unofficial because the NWS station-of-record moved to the airport in 1950, is the highest temperature ever recorded downtown.

Whew!