Death Valley and parts of southern California have erupted in wildflowers thanks to record rain that helped deliver spectacular blooms.
In the famously arid national park, the rare display has covered miles of the landscape in vibrant shades of yellow and purple.
Park officials announced on Sunday that Death Valley was experiencing an “above-average bloom year” that is nearing levels of a superbloom, a phenomenon that typically occurs once a decade. The area most recently had a superbloom of millions of flowers in 2016, which can only occur in “perfect conditions” with “well-spaced rainfall” and mild temperatures, the park said in a statement.
“It looks like it will be a superbloom – maybe not fully developed yet – but we’re heading in that direction,” Abby Wines, Death Valley’s acting deputy superintendent, recently told the Pahrump Valley Times.
The park doesn’t have as many flowers as past superbloom years, but has significantly more than usual. The development comes after Death Valley, which is among the hottest and driest places on the globe, saw record-breaking rains last fall that set the stage for wildflower blooms and brought back an ancient lake.
With recent rains, parks across southern California are seeing major blooms. The Anza-Borrego Desert state park, which received about 3.5in of rain in the last three months, has seen an explosion of orange, purple and white blooms. The state park, popular for its desert flowers, said that while a superbloom hasn’t so far happened this year, it still has “rewarding and meaningful wildflower experiences”.
In Death Valley, officials say lower-elevation blooms will probably remain through March, while higher elevations will see blooms from April to June.
Superblooms often become viral events online, and draw huge crowds of visitors eager to capture photos of the stunning spectacle.
While that doesn’t yet appear to have happened this year, in recent days social media users have posted photos and videos of the vivid expanses of flowers.
“The hottest place in North America may soon be covered in wildflowers due to the weather, marking the first superbloom in 10 years,” AccuWeather wrote on its Instagram account.
