Showing posts with label superbloom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label superbloom. Show all posts

Sunday, April 30, 2023

A bloom worthy of the term ‘super’

Lupine and Fiddlenecks at Sunrise, Carrizo Plain National Monument, California

There is a trend to append the word “super” to various natural phenomena. For instance, a few times a year, it’s not just a full moon, but a “super moon.” About the same time the moon at perigee got special branding, desert wildflowers also occasionally started to receive elite status. They just don’t get it anywhere near as often.

Because of an unusually wet winter, parts of California were elevated to “superbloom” status this spring. Since the fall, the Carrizo Plain, located about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, received just under 4 inches of rain — 2½ times what it gets over the course of a normal winter.