As a gardener, there are lots of factors that can influence tree growth from year to year. Rainfall is but one of those factors. An increase of CO2 from a volcanic eruption can spur tree growth. A tree roots' finding a richer pocket of nutrient rich soil can spur growth, the number of sunny days can affect growth. A tree that has roots that reach out to a nearby marshland with nearly unlimited food and water available can spur growth in one tree while a tree nearby that hasn't had it's roots reach that marshland will show slower growth. A tree that loses a competing tree to a storm will show faster growth as it's no longer competing for light and nutrients. It's a very inexact science. Plant growth has tons of variables. Too much rain can actually drown a tree and kill it.
As to anyone making claims for the whole state of California, California's a big state. If you move California to the East Coast you'd be talking about a region from the northern edge of Massachusetts all the way down to the southern tip of South Carolina. Weather varies a lot over that large a range. I live in Southern New Jersey and we've been up to our eyeballs in rainfall only to have the state in a drought emergency because the northern half of the state didn't get enough snow to fill the mountain reservoirs. We're a fraction the size of California.
People can manipulate data to show pretty much anything they want. Widespread drought is not uncommon. See the dustbowl days back in the thirties for an example. I believe that drought lasted eight years. Droughts happen, floods happen, they always have, they always will. People like to argue these days that "This is why this is happening and here's proof!" and they'll find some data that backs up their claim. The thing is there's lots of data that also disputes the same claim, but they ignore that data. I've been here 58 years now and I've seen everything in my life weather wise from really big snow/rain storms to periods of intense drought.
The truth of the matter is, there is no pattern. There is no "why" as to what happens. You can find data to support just about anything, but that doesn't make it true. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans we were warned that would be the norm from now on. Major category five hurricanes just battering us every year due to climate change. How many category five storms have formed since then? Three. Which is pretty much the norm. Other than a stretch from 1938-1953 where there were none reported, cat 5 storms pop up whenever they poup. Sometimes there will be two in a year, other times you'll go a few years between. There is no dramatic difference in the frequency of the storms.
We need to de-politicize everything these days and go back to common sense and use our common sense. There doesn't have to be an absolutely right and an absolutely wrong to everything. In the real world there's a whole lot of grey and very little black and white. In fact the natural things that are black and white, like skunks for example, tend to be a bit repellent. Talk to people who have been around longer than you. Ask them what the weather was like in the pat. They'll tell you tales of massive snowfalls, drenching rains, devastating droughts, intense heat, bitter cold, and every other variable imaginable and there's no real pattern to it. We all weren't living in a veritable garden of eden with perfect climate unitl a few decades ago. No. Weather always changes and it always has.
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