Death Valley: Super Bloom Blankets One Of North America's Driest Places With Millions Of Flowers

Twenty species of flowers have bloomed in California's Death Valley National Park, one of the hottest places on Earth, for the first time in 10 years. The National Park Service noted that the sudden bloom of millions of flowers was caused by the heavy downpours in October.

Death Valley, which is also considered one of the driest places in North America, usually receives two inches of rain annually, but the National Weather Service noted that after heavy storms in October, there was an instance where three inches of rain fell on the park in within five hours. The last time flowers bloomed in the area was in 2005, but this "super bloom" exceeded what happened more than a decade ago.

"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 thing - the ultimate possibility of what a desert wildflower bloom could be," Park Ranger Alan Van Valkenburg said, according to the National Park Service.

"I saw several impressive displays of wildflowers over the years and always wondered how anything could beat them, until I saw my first super bloom in 1998. Then I understood. I never imagined that so much life could exist here in such staggering abundance and intense beauty," Van Valkenburg added.

The previous "super blooms" happened in 1998 and 2005 during El Niño seasons, which had conditions similar to this year's "super bloom." Park officials note that winter and spring storms take place in the area during El Niño and cause more rainfall than usual, according to NPR.

The sea of wildflowers emerged in December last year and might have been at its best last week, according to Global News.

Below are photos taken during the "super bloom" in Death Valley.

Tags

North America, California, El Niño