Raindrops fill puddles in Baker City on the morning of July 21, 2025. (Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald)

The drought continues but Baker City’s streak of drier-than-usual months is over.

And the four-month run ended in a most unusual way.

Rain is rare in July — it’s the driest month here, with an average of 0.50 of an inch — and when it does it fall it’s almost always spawned by a thunderstorm.

But not this July.

A plain old rain storm early on Monday, July 21 — no thunder — pushed the month’s rain total at the Baker City Airport to 0.9 of an inch as of 11 a.m.

Hardly a deluge, to be sure. But it surpassed the monthly average, which hadn’t happened since February.

The March 1-June 30 period was the driest at the airport for those four months since at least 1944, the first year for which records are available at the airport.

Total precipitation from March 1 through June 30 was 1.39 inches — 33% of average for the four-month period.

As of July 15, about 56% of Baker County was in severe drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Monday’s storm was actually the second in July that brought considerable rain without the typical summer accompaniments of lightning and thunder. Both storms set daily rainfall records.

The Fourth of July set a record with 0.39 of an inch at the airport.

The latter storm was similarly soggy. As of 11 a.m. July 21, the daily total was 0.46, breaking the July 21 record of 0.26, set in 1987.

This is the wettest July at the airport since 2015, when the total was 2.72 inches.

Other rainfall totals around the region as of 11 a.m. Monday:

• Blue Canyon (near Old Auburn Lane): 0.57

• Elk Creek (near Baker City watershed): 0.70

• Mason Dam: 0.60

• Oregon Trail Interpretive Center: 0.56

• Near Haines: 0.26

• Hereford: 0.51

• Unity Dam: 0.51

• Yellowpine Campground (northwest of Unity): 0.62

• Bourne: 0.70

• Aneroid Lake Snotel: 0.80

• Grant County Airport: 0.52

• La Grande/Union County Airport: 0.33

• Eastern Oregon Regional Airport, Pendleton: 0.04