Here is 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 cyclical warming of the central Pacific Ocean might 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 seen in decades.
Yellows, reds, purples and whites have covered the normally stark landscapes of the Atacama, where temperatures top 40oC this time of year.
Photo: AFP
From violet-and-white Chilean bell flowers, or “countryside sighs” (Nolana paradoxa), and red “lion claws” (Bomarea ovallei) to yellow Rhodophiala rhodolirion, they have filled the normally pale desert valleys with rivers of color.
“This year has been particularly special, because the amount of rainfall has made this perhaps the most spectacular of the past 40 or 50 years,” University of Atacama desert specialist Raul Cespedes said.
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 stems that grow horizontally — to germinate.
“When you think of the desert, you think of total dryness, but there’s a latent ecosystem here just waiting for certain conditions to arise,” Cespedes said.
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 are now blooming for the second time this year, at the outset of the southern hemisphere’s summer.
“This is a very unusual phenomenon. Because of the floods in March there was an exceptional winter bloom, which had never before been recorded ... and then there was another bloom in spring,” Chilean National Tourism Service Director for the Atacama region Daniel Diaz said.
“Two flowerings a year is very unusual in the most arid desert in the world, and that’s something we’ve been able to enjoy this spring, along with people from all over the world. There’s a lot of interest in seeing it,” he told reporters.
The region has seen a 40 percent increase in tourists since the flowers began blooming.
“It is so unusual, yet so real,” said British tourist Edward Zannahand, who made a special stop in Atacama on what he described as a road trip around the world.
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