Center on Data Innovation – “The Wall Street Journal has created a visualization tracking wildflower observations in southern California from 1876 to 2023 [subscription req’d – right click on photo to open in new window w no text]: The visualization shows poppies as orange dots, suncups as yellow dots, lupins as blue dots, pincushions as purple dots, desert dandelions as yellow dots, and other flowers as green dots, with the size of the dot relaying the number of observations. Superblooms, a rare desert phenomenon in which wildflowers bloom en masse, typically occur after the region experiences a drought followed by an unusually rainy period. Southern California’s recent rainy winter followed three of the driest years on record and, as a result, the state is set to experience its first superbloom since 2019.”

California’s Wet Winter Could Lead to First Superbloom in Years Poppies are set to bloom across the state in bursts of orange and yellow for the first time since 2019.”