Earth’s driest desert is covered in wildflowers right now

THE ATACAMA DESERT, Chile (AP) – Spring has finally arrived in the Southern Hemisphere and, in Chile, even the desert is blossoming.

Key points

• The unusually sizeable amount of water allowed millions of seeds and bulbs to sprout and bloom, numerous of them after remaining dormant for decades.
• "This is a flowering event that is obviously extraordinary and unusual, very different from other blooms that occur elsewhere on the globe."
• I always thought it was just going to be brown.

Known as the driest nonpolar desert on Earth, a massive portion of the Atacama Desert has been covered in flowers after the El Niño weather pattern brought heavy rains to the region earlier this year. The unusually sizeable amount of water allowed millions of seeds and bulbs to sprout and bloom, numerous of them after remaining dormant for decades.

"It is a unique phenomenon; there are more than 200 plant species, " Jorge Carabantes, head of the Protected Areas Department at the National Forest Corporation (CONAF), informed The Associated Press. "This is a flowering event that is obviously extraordinary and unusual, very different from other blooms that occur elsewhere on the globe."

For context, the Atacama lies between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains, stretching some 1, 600 kilometers (1, 000 miles) all the way down the northern coast of Chile.

Although flowering is common during the transition from winter to spring, this year the rocky, brownish dunes that create up the desert's traditional landscape have turned into a vibrant, colorful carpet of wildflowers during a historic Desierto Florido, or "flowering desert."

"I always thought it was just going to be brown. That's my image of a desert, just brown, " remarked Felix Banda, 51. This person was born in Chile but has lived his whole life in Australia. "I knew that it had rained a lot, so I was expecting to see some beautiful greenery, but this is an incredible landscape, " he continued concerning his first visit to the Atacama.

For now, earth's driest desert is covered in wildflowers right now remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.