I think the place to start with this would be that the Colorado River has been in mostly a drought situation from Colorado to Arizona to California to Mexico mostly for about 20 years now. This likely is where I should start. At the same time the east coast seems to be getting more and more rain, California has been getting less and less over the last 20 years or so. So, this seems to be where things are going lately (the last 20 years or so).
Recently in December and January my wife and daughters spent about 2 months (the daughters about 3 weeks around Christmas for my older daughter's birth there in San Diego County. I noticed while walking around Poway how incredibly dry the hills were compared to the last time I had been in San Diego County and how the surrounding area reminded me more of the desert in the hills where no houses were built yet.
But, since I travel California a lot from Los Angeles and Orange Counties up to Mt. Shasta to Portland and Seattle I can see the changes a lot in the weather all times of year.
Though there is still enough water from about Ashland, Oregon North there isn't enough water from Redding South not to turn things into more and more like a desert (except for the Sacramento River) which is fed from places like the Mt. Shasta area and others in the mountains where it rains and snows more than down at lower levels like Redding to Williams on Interstate 5 south to San Francisco. The coast gets more fog as the inland goes higher and higher into the 100s more and more each summer which also is creating nightmare fires like the Carr fire which is likely the worst fire I've EVER seen north of the Clear Lake Region which seems to be on fire now every year (whether it is or not) during the summer sometime. Fires like the one last year in Santa Rosa also remind me of the Carr fire too. So, as these really bad fires move further and further north as things dry out more it continues this nightmare scenario of making things more unstable in various ways.
For example, the same problems the people in Santa Barbara had last winter with fires turning into mudslide killing 25 people over night, the people in Redding and surrounding areas need to watch for starting about September or October or whenever the next big rainstorm hits.
Because, for example, if there is a bad thunderstorm soon in the mountains to the west of Redding it could get really bad in some areas with no vegetation to stop the mudslides now.
So, even if the fire is put out rain could cause severe mudslides in various areas near Redding from now on through the spring time.
Hopefully, enough grass seed and other vegetation will come back enough before the really heavy rains start anytime after September of this year.
This is the other thing with desertification of areas in California. I have had a lot of experience with Flash floods in the deserts from Apple Valley to Yucca Valley because my father and mother spent a lot of weekends in the desert near Yucca Valley from the time I was 12 years old and eventually retired there on 2 1/2 acres they bought with a house my father and I and mother and friends built on weekends from 1968 until 1980.
So, for me, I have had several near death experiences with Flash Floods where mountains meet deserts near Yucca Valley where Big Bear meets the Desert areas. And even if you are 25 miles away from a huge rainstorm you still have to think about what you are doing because that rain once it hits the ground might get to you if you are downslope from where it is falling. I have seen 3 foot or higher walls of water come out of the mountains and into the desert where without a car I would have died. And this was completely without any warning suddenly seeing 3 feet or more of water along more than a block left to right coming at me. After experiences like this another time seeing a man's car fenders and hood bent straight up in the air because he went through 5 feet deep of water at 80 miles per hour on a paved road (for fun) made me realize you don't mess with mother nature in the desert if you want to live. (I think the man didn't realize just how deep the running water from the flash flood was). He likely thought it was only a foot or two deep or he just didn't see the water at all. This is the kind of thing that can happen if you go through water with a vehicle and don't know how deep it is.
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