Fire road in Northern California coastal range

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When I walked today  on a fire road in the first photo I was very surprised to see some poison oak already turning red. This usually doesn't happen until summer or fall. Though it is less likely to usually get a case of poison oak from red (usually the oily green ones are the worst) still it was troubling to see some of the poison oak changing already. Also, sometimes in good water years (not the last 5 to 7 years now) poison oak will grow up the side of especially pine trees 10 to 20 feet. The height usually denotes how wet that year has been. But now, often at night I feel like when I wake up in the middle of the night it sometimes feels in my throat like being in the desert which I find very strange while living along the northern California coast. The poison oak this year never in any cases I have seen so far has climbed above 4 to 5 feet up other bushes or trees because the water is so scarce this year. So, red poison oak in March is pretty crazy because it's not late summer or fall.