JANUARY WETTEST MONTH SINCE 2005

5.14 inches of rain was recorded at S.D. airport; the average is 1.98 inches

San Diego International Airport received 5.14 inches of rain in January, making it the wettest month in the city since February 2005, when the airport recorded 5.83 inches of precipitation, the National Weather Service said.

The airport averages 1.98 inches of rain in January, a figure it surpassed by 3.16 inches.

San Diego got drenched because “the jet stream dropped unusually far south and because many storms followed a trajectory that brought them in here from the Pacific,” said Dan Gregoria, a weather service forecaster.

On many occasions, the region was hit by back-to-back storms, and several of those systems gained extra strength by tapping moisture from the subtropics. That moisture arrived in the form of atmospheric rivers that produced downpours throughout San Diego County.

Two of those storms dumped roughly 2 inches of rain over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. The deluge triggered flooding that led to 11 swift-water rescues across the county on Jan. 16.

Scientists say the heavy rain likely contributed to the major rock and dirt slide that occurred at

Black’s Beach in La Jolla on Jan. 20.

Since the rainy season began on Oct. 1, the airport has recorded 7.88 inches of precipitation, which is 2.94 inches above average. February is historically the wettest month in San Diego. The airport averages about 2.3 inches. Gregoria says a low-pressure system is expected to develop in the Pacific over the weekend, but it is unclear whether it will bring rain to Southern California.