It’s official. This is the wettest May ever in Texas.

Texas has never had a wetter month than this one.

According to state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas so far has received an average of 7.54 inches of rain in May, which smashes the previous record of 6.66 inches set in June, 2004. Texas rain records go back 120 years.

The amount of water falling onto Texas this month is staggering, amounting to roughly 35 trillion gallons. That’s as much rain as the mighty Mississippi River discharges over the course of three months. And even if every Texan had 50 large swimming pools, the rain would have filled all of them.

According to Nielsen-Gammon, the 10 highest rainfall months in state history were all over 6 inches per month. So for a single month to come along and jump all the way to 7.54 inches, with a few days left in May, is remarkable.

And it comes just four years after 2011, the worst one-year drought experienced by the state.

“The monthly rainfall record was annihilated this May about as badly as 2011 annihilated the drought records,” said

“The monthly rainfall record was annihilated this May about as badly as 2011 annihilated the drought records.” John Nielsen-Gammon, state climatologist

Nielsen-Gammon, a professor of atmospheric science at Texas A&M University.

About 10 to 15 inches of rain have fallen this month across Houston, which got much of that during the Memorial Day weekend. Dallas has been the state’s high-water mark with about 20 inches in May. Parts of Central Texas have gotten 18 inches.

An active El Niño in the Pacific Ocean has driven the persistent rains across Texas by helping to steer the jet stream, a current of fast-moving air in the upper atmosphere, over the state. This has brought a steady flow of moisture and upper-level low pressure systems, which create the lift to form thunderstorms.

A wet May has pulled most of Texas out of the drought that began in late 2010. A year ago, more than 55 percent of Texas remained in at least a “severe” drought, based upon data from the U.S. Drought Monitor. Now about 3 percent is, and that area is shrinking.

In just the last month, lakes near Wichita Falls, in North Texas, have risen from being 20 percent full to 100 percent of their capacity.

Overall, the state’s reservoirs are now 82 percent full, says the Texas Water Development Board. That’s up from less than 65 percent a few months ago, and it’s the highest level since 2010. The vital Edwards Aquifer is also at its highest water mark in more than three years. Summer, of course, is coming. That means the northern hemisphere jet stream, which can swoop down as far south as Texas during cooler months, will pull back north. During the summer months, the jet stream more typically will move over southern Canada and the upper Midwestern United States.

Thursday should bring only scattered thunderstorms in Houston, helping to ease some of the area’s flooding concerns. However, for the Friday-through-Sunday period, conditions might allow heavier rain.

All the same in the coming weeks, as the jet stream slides north, El Niño’s influence on our rainfall will wane. June could still be wet, but there’s no reason to believe the wet pattern will extend into July or August.

In fact, some long-range forecast models indicate higher pressures over much of Texas and the Gulf of Mexico during these warmer months, which would mean the state receives less rain than normal.

So rain may be a pain now, but by August it may be a fond memory.