El Nino covers arid Atacama desert in flowers
Here's a softer side to the disruptive weather phenomenon known as El Nino: an enormous blanket of colorful flowers has carpeted Chile's Atacama desert, the most arid in the world.- The desert flowers are perhaps nature's consolation for what has been a devastating year for Atacama. They first bloomed in March, after heavy rains that caught the region by surprise and caused massive floods that killed more than 30 people. They
- El Nino, which wreaks havoc on world weather patterns every two to seven years, has hit particularly hard this year, causing unusually heavy rainfall in the world's driest desert. That has caused dormant flower bulbs and rhizomes -- underground
- From violet-and-white Chilean bell flowers, or "countryside sighs" (Nolana paradoxa), to red "lion claws" (Bomarea ovallei), to yellow Rhodophiala rhodolirion, they have filled the normally pale desert valleys with rivers of color.
- Yellows, reds, purples and whites have covered the normally stark landscapes of the Atacama, where temperatures top 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) this time of year.
- The cyclical warming of the central Pacific may be causing droughts and floods in various parts of the world, but in the vast desert of northern Chile it has also caused a vibrant explosion of thousands of species of flowers with an intensity not
Here's a softer side to the disruptive weather phenomenon known as El Nino: an enormous blanket of colorful flowers has carpeted Chile's Atacama desert, the most arid in the world.
El Nino covers arid Atacama desert in flowers
Next Story