By Reginald Stanley. Posted April 3, 2023, 4:11 PM.

The 2022-2023 water year is shaping up to be the region's wettest rainy season overall since at least 2010-2011 - over a decade ago - with many locations having either already exceeded or close to exceeding that season's totals. For some locations, 2022-2023 is the wettest season since the historically wet 2004-2005 season (however it is very unlikely those records will be broken this year).

In South Temecula, the site of WeatherCurrents' longest-running station (precipitation records began there in 2000), 2022-2023 is currently the third-wettest season on record there, behind 2010-2011 and 2004-2005. At Temecula's sister station in neighboring Murrieta (where precipitation records began in 2003), 2022-2023 is currently the second-wettest season recorded there with 24.23 inches, although this is still far behind 2004-2005's astronomical total of 37.21 inches. At this time, seven WeatherCurents stations have season totals exceeding 20 inches. The remaining operational WeatherCurrents stations (that are not missing any precipitation data for the current season) included Anza, Pinon Hills and San Jacinto; which all remain under 20 inches.

The winter of 2022-2023 has feature numerous atmospheric river events target the West Coast, particularly California. This has resulted in a number of flood events throughout the state, especially the northern half of the state, as well as high snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Each month beginning in November has also featured consistently below-average temperatures throughout the region, with only one instance of significant warmth occurring since October at all - a brief heat spell on Christmas Day, which was quickly replaced yet again with cold, wet weather going into the New Year.

The decade of the 2010s featured an unusually high number of drought years and lack of wet ones. In the twelve water years since 2010-2011 (including 2022-2023), only three of them saw above-average rainfall, while the remaining eight water years featured widespread below-average rainfall - several of them severely below-average, such as 2013-2014, 2017-2018 and 2020-2021. The 2022-2023 water year has seen virtually the entire region experience widespread high rainfall to the greatest degree since 2010-2011. Entering April 2023, however, the region may finally begin to see its first significant warmth of the Spring going into the month's second week, while the beginning of the month remains cool and unsettled. Precipitation chances typically begin diminishing greatly in April, however late-season storms remain possible and not uncommon going into May. No solid chances of precipitation are currently in the forecast.