New York City, July 19, 2012

★★★ A soothing, even, gray mildness. The balmy air mooted ordinary differences: morning or noon, clothed or unclothed, windows open or closed. The pleasant reverie was broken by few thin, spitting showers; some distinctions — raining vs. not raining — are best kept distinct, after all. A small swarm of gnats, missing the boundary between indoors and out, blundered around the top of the windowpane, toward the bafflingly unreachable light of the sky. Late in the afternoon, wrinkles opened in the cloud cover, sending thin rays of glory down toward the rippling but glassy-looking Hudson. Any July would benefit from an interval like this.

Weather ratings range from zero to five stars.