Normal

County farmers are fixing wheels on their tractors, plowing fields, buying fertilizer -- and trying to be optimistic.It's a farmer's occupational duty to be sanguine if it's spring, but some say it's harder after last year's ravaging drought."

The rains that drenched the Baltimore area over the weekend were well above normal for September, and they put a dent in Maryland's long-standing drought. But they didn't finish it off entirely."We'll need our regular rainfall, plus 10 more inches," said Dewey Walston, a forecaster for the National Weather Service in Sterling, Va.The weather service recorded 2.34 inches of rain Sunday and Monday at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. That figure is well above the normal six-tenths of an inch for this point in September, but doesn't make up for the area's long-standing rainfall deficit.

Boston.--There was a Catskill comedian who used to tell a story about his first time away from home and home cooking. After a week in Army boot camp his stomach started to feel funny. He was convinced that something was terribly wrong with his digestive system, maybe his entire body.Well, after much medical consultation, the problem was diagnosed. For the first time in his life he wasn't suffering from heartburn.I think about him every summer during the dangerous season of vacations. People, even presidents, get away from the office for a week or two, and if they're not careful, they lose their disequilibrium.

It drizzled on Earth Day. It poured on the Preakness Parade. Memorial Day was memorable mostly for the cold and rain. And yesterday's high temperature was the coolest May 26 on record in Baltimore.But if you think May has been a lot chillier and wetter than normal, think again."Everybody probably thinks it's been 4 to 5 degrees below normal this month, but it really hasn't," said Ken Shaver, TC meteorologist with the National Weather Service at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.Instead, he predicted that May temperatures would wind up only 1 degree below average.

Natural gas posted its biggest price decline in three months in New York as mild weather blanketed the United States from Chicago to the East Coast at a time when demand for the fuel typically rises. Temperatures will remain above normal across the biggest gas-consuming regions, covering most of the eastern half of the United States through Jan. 4, MDA Federal's EarthSat Energy Weather forecaster said yesterday. Mild weather has trimmed demand for supplies stored in underground caverns that utilities draw on to meet the winter heating needs of customers.

Baltimore's reservoirs are full again, and if Baltimoreans are feeling just a tad mossy under all this rain, at least they know the summer veggies are off to a lush start. The ample spring rains have washed away the effects of the drought that began in July 1998 and led the governor last summer to impose statewide water restrictions. But weather and water experts caution that today's welcome moisture could evaporate quickly in the coming months. While May seemed like a soggy month, it was fairly dry across the state, down by an inch or more from normal amounts.

Sure it was hot. But even your grade-schooler can remember a hotter July -- in 1988.It was dry, too. But your basic middle-school kid is old enough to remember a drier July -- in 1983.The real news is that July 1991 was really hot, and really dry at the same time. And, it has continued a run of weather that could add up to the warmest ever Baltimore year.That would douse a record set last year."This combination of hot and dry is not that usual," says Fred Davis, chief National Weather Service meteorologist at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

"When I had my daughter, it was the toughest time of my life," says Baltimore native Jean Marie Fiumara. "I wanted so badly for somebody to tell me it was going to be all right ... that this is normal." By "this" she means a baby's drooling or crying, a mother's lack of time for even a phone call, or the ways doubt creeps in when one is caring for an infant. "I went from a full-time career as a television producer ... who used to make major decisions to a person who couldn't even think," she says.

It may be cold and damp tonight as you usher out 1991. But the weatherman says that, on average, it's been another very warm and dry year for Central Maryland.In fact, 1991 was the second-warmest year -- and the third-driest -- in 41 years of record-keeping at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. The warmest ever was just last year."The '90s are starting off just like the '80s," said Fred Davis, chief meteorologist at BWI for the National Weather Service. The 1980s, too, were unusually warm and dry.Nobody's ready to call it evidence of global warming, he said.

I help coach a 9U baseball travel team where we've found that our boys fade in late games at big tournaments. It has more to do with mental lapses than physical fatigue. Can mental toughness and focus be taught or coached at this age, or is it just a matter of waiting for these boys to mature? Dan Markim, Austin, Texas DEAR DAN / / I think you hit it right on the head with your last statement. Sometimes in the quest to provide our kids with opportunities to improve and allow them to play more games, we put them in situations that they are not mentally and emotionally prepared to handle.