Around 1000 years ago the US Southwest had an incredible drought that lasted more than a century. It was so dry that trees grew on the bottom of what are now large, deep lakes. many of them are still there, standing. (as well as trees from previous droughts millenniums ago)
What would happen if that happened now? Would all/most/some of the cities and farms there be abandoned until it started raining again?
Similarly, every couple of years they find flash-frozen woolly mammoths in Russia thawing out of river banks, etc. Many of them were well preserved because the weather just changed one day embedding them under permafrost, and typically didn't change back until now.