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Super Bloom Carpets Death Valley — Dormant Seeds Spring To Life Thanks To El Niño

By Shelley Hazen
Published on: 02:29 PST, Feb 25, 2016

The super bloom that nature lovers had been hoping for has now arrived in Death Valley.

The usually barren and dry landscape in this national park nestled on the border of Nevada and California is now bursting with color and, depending on the weather, the super bloom should last a few weeks.

Thanks to an autumn rainstorm and El Niño’s warm air, the region is coated with the colorful blooms of more than a dozen wildflower species, among them gravel ghost, desert gold, purple mat, evening primrose, and sand verbena, the Washington Post reported.

“These areas that are normally just rock, just soil, just barren, not even shrubs,” Kayla Samoy wrote in the Arizona Republic. “So Death Valley really does go from being a valley of death to being a valley of life.”

Death Valley is the lowest and driest place in North America and the world’ hottest. Surrounded by mountains and full of only bare earth and sand, it’s like a “convection oven,” as searing hot air flows into the basin and scorches the landscape, according to the Post.

These conditions don’t sound ideal for life: average summer temperatures of 120 degrees (and 90 at night) and only two inches of rain a year. Nonetheless, even when there isn’t a super bloom, 1,000 plant species live in the park, fish swim in Salt Creek, and bighorn sheep eek out a living on the mountain slopes.

And wildflower seeds lie in wait under the ground. The blistering hot and brutally dry weather that seems to prevent any life from flourishing actually protects them from spoiling as they hide beneath the soil, dormant.

When the conditions are just right, they sprout, and thanks to El Niño, they were right this year.

“And then I suddenly realized there are so many seeds out there just waiting to sprout, waiting to grow,” said park ranger Alan Van Valkenburg. “When you get the perfect conditions, the perfect storm so to speak, they can all sprout at once.”

Last October, a storm brought 0.7 inches of rain to Death Valley and caused damaging flash floods. But it also washed away the layer of soil that had been protecting the dormant seeds. Enter El Niño: it provided even more water to the plants, which then were able to sprout when warm weather arrived. This month, the area has seen temperatures in the 90s.

The super bloom won’t last long. The flowers are called ephemerals because of their short life, and their only job during this time is to grow fast, reproduce even faster, and then die when the weather becomes too harsh for life once again, the National Park Service explained, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

“Oddly enough, this limited lifespan ensures survival here. When enough rain finally does fall, the seeds quickly sprout, grow, (blossom) and go back to seed again before the dryness and heat returns. By blooming enmasse during good years, wildflowers can attract large numbers of pollinators such as butterflies, moths, bees and hummingbirds that might not otherwise visit Death Valley.”

When the heat returns, the flowers will die and crumble, but their seeds will hunker down into the soil, waiting for the next batch of perfect conditions to give the world another super bloom.

According to the Smithsonian, the super bloom could last a few weeks, depending on the weather. Once temperatures hit 100 degrees, the flowers will droop. If there are no heat waves, the lower elevations will be full of color until mid-March or April. And convection oven heats up again, the flowers will move north to cooler temperatures, where they could live until mid-May.

[Image via National Park Service Facebook]

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