Especially in the western United States where often elevation changes are extreme combined with forests and brush of various sizes, the drought cycle which might be from 6 months to 1 year to even 2 or 3 years, then fires, followed too quickly on by monsoon flash flooding as you can see can be disastrous. Though from Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona westwards all have these extreme elevation changes they don't usually have to also deal with Hurricanes basically ever. Hurricanes start further south in Mexico and Central America and head towards Hawaii, Asia and points further west. So, Hurricanes aren't usually seen from about Colorado and New Mexico on westwards.
But, as we have just seen in Colorado the effects of droughts, then fires caused by or exacerbated by the droughts then followed too quickly by monsoon drenching can be disastrous for areas recently denuded by fires. I think this is one of the effects of global Climate Change. And the long term problem likely will be the desertification of certain areas of the western part of the United States. This is especially serious for states like Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico because literally all their water comes from snow pack or rains as they come down down through the rivers. So, in these cycles it could cause one year the Colorado River to Dry up only to be running 6 months of the next year from monsoon floods. But without a good snow pack during the winter it also means that in the summer and fall it is also possible for the Colorado river to basically dry up during some parts of the year like many streams do in California from about June or July to the next rainy season except for really big rivers like the Sacramento which usually run year around.
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