It’s spring in the Southern Hemisphere and even Chile’s Atacama Desert is blossoming

THE ATACAMA DESERT, Chile (AP) — Spring has finally arrived in the Southern Hemisphere and, in Chile, even the desert is blossoming. 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 large amount of water allowed millions of seeds and bulbs to sprout and bloom, many 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), told 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.” 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 make 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,” said Felix Banda, 51, who 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 added about his first visit to the Atacama. Record rainfall turns into a visual spectacle Between July and August, Chile recorded record rainfall in several regions, with some levels never seen since measurements began in the 1950s.

The heavy precipitation was driven by a super El Niño, a climate phenomenon that causes sharp rises in global temperatures and is becoming increasingly strong. “What has happened now has an origin, and it is called ‘super El Niño.’” The storms have caused flooding, havoc and devastation in several parts of Chile. In the north, they have also enabled the hist…

In the north, they have also enabled the historic dese…