Ah, you beat me to it, I was thinking they overlooked the Dust Bowl, but then that was in flyover country that the press doesn’t even know exists.
Now it may be the worst drought California’s seen in that length of time but I suspect not since California’s plant life is adapted to drought conditions. Besides, no one’s been around measuring rainfall in all that time and tree rings will only tell you so much - only about the immediate vicinity of the tree they come from.