You are now in California and the U.S. category.

California’s current rainy season can no longer lay claim to being No. 1. After relatively modest rainfall in March, this season now ranks as the second wettest in 122 years of record-keeping, according to data released Thursday by federal scientists. Between October 2016 and March 2017, California averaged 30.75 inches of precipitation, the second-highest average since such records began being kept in 1895, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The crippling wintertime droughts that struck California from 2013 to 2015, as well as this year’s unusually wet California winter, appear to be associated with the same phenomenon: a distinctive wave pattern that emerges in the upper atmosphere and circles the globe. Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) found in a recent study that the persistent high-pressure ridge off the west coast of North America that blocked storms from coming onshore during the winters of 2013-14 and 2014-15 was associated with the wave pattern, which they call wavenumber-5.

April 1 is a telling date in California water policy each year. All the measurements — snowpack, water in reservoirs — are compared to that date. And this April 1, there was something very interesting to note. We all know it’s been a wet winter, but on April 1, most of California’s reservoirs were not full. We know there are some other issues in play with Lake Oroville — just 76 percent full at the end of the day April 1 — but most of the other lakes were down too. Shasta was 89 percent full, Trinity 90 percent, Folsom just 60 percent.

In this year of record rainfall, billions of gallons of water are flowing to the ocean that – if only sufficient storage existed – could be stored for the drought that inevitably will return. If ever there were an argument for construction of Sites Reservoir to the west of the Sacramento River, this winter’s rain is it. The project is poised to get welcome support from Southern California. The Sacramento Bee’s Dale Kasler reported Thursday that the Southern California Metropolitan Water District is considering investing a modest sum, $1.5 million, to help plan for the $4.4 billion project in Glenn and Colusa counties.

It was obvious even during the presidential campaign that Donald Trump didn’t know much about water policy and didn’t have much inclination to learn. Now we have some hard evidence that his ignorance won’t keep him from stepping into a water policy quagmire. The evidence comes from an Interior Department ruling that appears to be aimed at clearing the way for a controversial, environmentally dangerous and largely pointless private water project out in the Mojave Desert.