One of the driest places on the planet is currently experiencing a vibrant flower bloom, making for a rare spectacle for those living in northern Chile.
The Atacama Desert in Chile, known as the driest place on Earth, is awash with color after a year’s worth of extreme rainfall.
Historic rainfall moved through the region earlier this year bringing 0.96 inches of rain in one day to parts of the Atacama Desert. This may not seem like much, but it was a huge rainfall event for the desert — over 14 years of rain in one day.
Flower blossoms like this only happen roughly every five to ten years due to how scarce rain is. This year’s rain has led to “the most spectacular blossoming of the past 18 years.”
People traveling to the area to view the spectacle will have until the early part of November before the flowers begin to die and the landscape returns to normal.
Beautiful, but the first photo is from 15 Feb 1999, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California, USA — Desert flowers — Image by © Charles Krebs/CORBIS, (i’m downloaded from other site) and the second photo is from Atacama desert in Bolivia. Others are correct, are really pictures from Chile.