The heat wave that has poached Marylanders in their own steam and car exhaust for six days finally broke yesterday afternoon with the arrival of cooler air and rain, but not before the heat was blamed as a factor in another fatality.
State health officials said a 65-year-old man was found dead in bed Thursday in his mobile home near Elkton. A Cecil County deputy sheriff said the temperature inside the trailer was close to 100 degrees.
The death was the fourth heat-related fatality reported in Maryland during a week of daily highs that crept closer each day to 100.
The demand for electricity to run air conditioners, which had forced a 5 percent voltage reduction across the region's electrical grid Thursday, eased yesterday.
Managers of the regional electrical grid said rainstorms in the region and conservation actions blunted demand at 52,200 megawatts - almost 2,000 lower than the record set the day before - and no further voltage cuts were called for.
Yesterday, Gov. Parris N. Glendening ordered, for a second day, all state offices to conserve energy. He urged homeowners and private businesses to do the same by raising thermostats and turning off unneeded lights and appliances.
And for the fifth day this week, the stagnant air and sunshine cooked the region's air pollution and produced unhealthy ozone levels in metropolitan Baltimore.
A "code red" alert was issued by the state health department at 2:15 p.m. after high ozone levels were recorded in Baltimore, Harford, Cecil and Kent counties.
The temperature at Baltimore-Washington International Airport climbed to 98 degrees at 2 p.m. - two degrees short of the record for the date. It was 99 degrees at the Inner Harbor. The heat index at both spots was 108.
Then, clouds began spreading across the region, blocking the sun and causing temperatures to back down a bit. By 3 p.m., the reading at BWI had dropped six degrees.
When the rain arrived downtown about 6 p.m., ahead of a long-promised cold front from the southern Great Lakes, the temperature at the airport was 82.
By 10 p.m. the Inner Harbor had received 0.63 inch of rain - with cloudbursts heavy enough for the Orioles to call off their game at Camden Yards last night. Some parts of southern Prince George's County got soaked with more than 2.5 inches, according the National Weather Service.
