How does the plate boundary along the west coast of the united states change over time?

The North American plate is moving towards the west-southwest at about 2.3 centimeters every year mediated by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the spreading center, which gave rise to the Atlantic Ocean. The small Juan De Fuca plate, moving east-northeast at 4 centimeters every year, was once a component of much greater oceanic plates known as the Farallon plate.  

The Farallon plate used to comprise what is now the Cocos plate of Mexico and Central America, and the Juan de Fuca plate in the region from N. Vancouver Island to the Cape Mendicino California, and a big sea floor tract in between. However, the middle portion of the Old Farallon plate disappeared underneath North America, it was subducted underneath California leaving the San Andreas fault system behind as the contact between the Pacific plates and North America.  

The Juan De Fuca plate is still actively subducting underneath North America. Its movement is not smooth, however, rather sticky. The buildup of strain takes place until the fault dissociates and a few meters of Juan De Fuca get slid underneath North America in a big earthquake.  

a rain shadow is a dry region of land on the side that is protected against the prevailing winds of a mountain range. the prevailing winds are the winds that occur most of the time in a particular place of the earth

prevailing winds carry air toward the mountain range. as the air rises up over a mountain range, the air cools, water vapor condenses, and clouds form. on this side of the mountains, called the windward side, precipitation falls in the form of  rain  or snow. this dry air produces a  rain shadow.

water and alcohols have similar properties because water molecules contain hydroxyl groups that can form hydrogen bonds with other water molecules and with alcohol molecules, and likewise alcohol molecules can form hydrogen bonds with other alcohol molecules as well as with water.