By Reginald Stanley. Posted April 10, 2020, 1:48 PM.

Season totals across the WeatherCurrents network for the 2019-2020 rainy season have once again surpassed the total season averages this year, amid a very wet March and April.

At the beginning of March, season totals were lagging below average following a dry January and February in the region, however a major pattern change to wetter weather took place beginning March 9, directly a stream of constant storms into the region since then. The wettest March in many years was followed by a persistent cutoff low in early April, producing five consecutive days of wet weather, with several of those days producing high rainfall for late in the season. The resulting boost in precipitation has catapulted season totals to slightly above average across Southern California, for the second year in a row. The most recent occurrence of two or more back-to-back above-average rainy seasons had occurred in 2009-2010 and 2010-2011, across most of the region. Two or more consecutive above-average rainy seasons are much less common than multiple consecutive below-average years. During the 2010s decade alone, the region experience five back-to-back below-average rainy seasons from 2011-2012 through 2015-2016.

Season totals as of April 10 have ranged from 12 inches to 21 inches across the WeatherCurrents network, with each station reporting their current total as above average for the season. Continuing rainfall Friday is contributing to still-rising season totals, as of Friday afternoon. March and April have been abnormally dry months during most years beginning in 2007, where historically they had been much wetter on average. In Temecula, where precipitation records date back to 2000, April 2020 is already the wettest April there on record, surpassing the previous wettest April of 2006, when 2.28 inches had fallen. Temecula's current April total of over 5 inches is already more than double that of April 2006. This stands in stark contrast to the dry Aprils of years such as 2008, 2009, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 - where very little or no rain fell at all at most WeatherCurrents stations.

Following this week's cutoff low, Southern California is set to begin drying out and gradually warming into late next week, with no rain in the forecast during that period.