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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMillions of flowers blanket Death Valley in first 'super bloom' in a decade
http://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/Death-Valley-National-Park-super-bloom-wildflowers-6848910.php#photo-9444365
In a land of extremes, where a barren valley floor sinks below sea level, rain rarely falls and summer temperatures reach a toasty 120 degrees, a riot of color has exploded.
For the first time in over a decade, Death Valley National Park is experiencing a "super bloom," when millions of wildflowers blanket the barren desert.
As the driest place in North America, Death Valley receives about two inches of annual rainfall on average, but last October a series of storms walloped the basin. In one area, three inches of rain fell in just five hours. It's this fall soaking, experts say, that have triggered the spring blooms.
This is the best display since 2005 and many wildflower enthusiasts are referring to it as a "super bloom."
"I'm not really sure where the term 'super bloom' originated, but when I first came to work here in the early 1990s I kept hearing the old timers talk about super blooms as a near mythical thingthe ultimate possibility of what a desert wildflower bloom could be," Park Ranger Alan Van Valkenburg said in a press statement.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,775 posts)Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
hunter
(38,348 posts)Places like Death Valley are neither dead nor barren.
The desert is gorgeous. It's not the barren wasteland of people's imagination. Dry camping alone with nary a soul around. It's magical.
flamingdem
(39,335 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)It's absolutely stunning. Hell on people with allergies, though.
Wilms
(26,795 posts)There was the '97/'98 El Nino.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Surely that can't be almost 20 years ago... oy.
Wilms
(26,795 posts)...WHEN?!!
longship
(40,416 posts)Warpy
(111,429 posts)The Atacama also bloomed this year, back in March.
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/multimedia/Flowers-Bloom-in-Chiles-Atacama-Desert-20151102-0017.html
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)malaise
(269,269 posts)Damn nature can be magnificent
burrowowl
(17,655 posts)Flowers not seen for decades in the desert can blossom out, when I came back from France my Father and I drove from Albuquerque to El Paso and the desert was blooming with plants I'd never seen and my Father hadn't seen since he was a kid!