COPIAPO, Chile — Chile’s Atacama Desert, the driest nonpolar desert in the world, is covered in pinks, yellows, lilacs and purples after its biggest wildflower bloom in at least 30 years, NPR reported.
Heavy rains this winter, driven by El Niño, caused flash floods in the desert, with some areas getting their heaviest rainfall since records began in the 1950s. Floodwaters in July and August destroyed or damaged dozens of homes and forced hundreds of people to evacuate.
But the water also soaked deeper into the ground than it has in decades, waking millions of seeds, bulbs and tubers that had been dormant under the sand. More than 200 species are now flowering, according to NPR.
Scientists say some patches are blooming where flowers have never been recorded, suggesting bulbs there had been dormant since before the phenomenon was first studied in detail in 1997.
“This is a natural seed bank, a dormant archive that becomes a living one with the rains,” said Moisés Grimberg, administrator of Llanos de Challe National Park. “But it’s a race against time.” The bloom lasts roughly two to three months.
Grimberg said the 113,000-acre coastal park normally gets about 10,000 visitors a year, but 15,000 came in just the last few weeks. Chile’s national tourism board expects about 300,000 overnight trips to the region during the bloom.
Arizona desert lovers will recognize the pattern: a wet season can bring a spring wildflower show here, too.
Sources: NPR. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: Pacific Southwest Region USFWS from Sacramento, US / Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
