Malva flowers grow on the Atacama Desert every five to seven years. (Photo : Twitter)
The Atacama Desert in Chile, widely held as the driest place on Earth, is blooming with vibrant color after a year's worth of heavy rainfall.
In a typical year, the Atacama Desert is a very dry area. The northern part of Atacama holds the record of longest period without a single drop of rain with 173 consecutive months. In another Atacama region near the south of Africa, the average annual rainfall is recorded at a mere 0.07 inches.
Despite this extremely dry season, strong El Niño years can sometimes bring rainfall into the desert. In March, experts recorded 0.96 inches of rain in just one day. While this does not sound much, experts consider this as a huge rainfall that accounts for over 14 years' worth of rain in just a single day, according to Washington Post. The heavy rainfall cause the usually dry Copiapo River to inundate far beyond it banks.
As the El Niño days continues to strengthen, rainfall in South America increases as well.
The heavy rainfall in March provided enough sustenance for the malva flowers to grow significantly on the floor of the Atacama Desert. This flowers bloom every five to seven years and usually coincides with the El Niño season. However, the massive amount of rainfall have led to the "most spectacular blossoming of the past 18 years."
A vast carpet of pink flowers now adorned the Atacama Desert floor. The otherwise rare scenery is expected to draw at least 20,000 tourist to the area that is commonly associated with dry and arid climate, according to The Daily Mail.
