Glen, the 1976-1977 winter was exceptionally cold in the eastern U.S....geese were getting frozen in in Delaware marshes, they had trouble getting natural gas (in barges?) up the river to Pittsburg PA, the delaware and maybe hudson rivers froze over. I was in Rhode Island then and it was very cold there. Do not know if it was offically the coldest winter of the last half of 20th century, but think it was. So, the large scale patterns of jet stream likely related dry in California to this...whether that would happen every time, I don't know, but seems like it could...although the very warm early winter in midwest and northeast this year occurred at same time as very dry southern California, so that does not match..
Chris