Will There Be a 2020 Super Bloom in Death Valley?

About the possibility of a wildflower “super bloom” in Death Valley in 2020… There HAS been a great quantity of moisture in some areas of Death Valley for the past 2 months, not just the pool in Badwater but on my visits in mid-December and early January it struck me that the soil moisture was very high.

I saw great germination of plants in some areas by mid-December, BUT the actual growth had largely stalled when I revisited 2-3 weeks later in early January. There were a few larger plants, but not the growth I had expected. So heat is needed as well… an earlier start to the germination and growth would have been better, so the plants could gain some size before the cooler slow growth period arrived.

A January 13 summary attributed to Death Valley National Park agrees:

“Will 2020 be a super-bloom or super-bust? We don’t know yet!
Several factors have to align for a super-bloom including regular, gentle rain over the course of the winter and spring, mild spring temperatures, and lack of strong winds. The stage has been set for a good–but not excellent–bloom: this fall and winter the park has had 0.95 inches of rain, compared with 1.3 inches of rain in the fall and winter leading up to the 2016 super-bloom. What happens next depends on the weather in the next couple of months, but current weather modeling shows slightly above average temperatures for spring. In short, while we do not anticipate a super-bloom (which, as the name implies, is not a regular event) we do hope it will be a good year for flowers. Keep your fingers crossed!
Pro-tip: Usually flowers start blooming by mid-February at low elevations. The low-elevation bloom is generally over by mid-April, but there are often flowers at higher elevations into early summer.”

As I write this on January 27, there will likely be growth in the coming week as temperatures go into the 80s as early as late this week, but it’ll be a race so see if the plants can grow large before the soil dries out. Ideally there would be another rain to water the growing plants, so desert gold for example can go from one single small 8-18″ stalk to much larger, multi-branching plants 2-3′ tall.

Conditions will likely vary, since rain in Death Valley is often geographically patchy, and some washes received more water and some will retain more soil moisture. So although it is not likely to be a widespread “super bloom” like on the scale of 2016, there should be some really nice areas.

Regarding timing, In 2016 I found good blooming in Death Valley by early February (photo is from Feb 10), and some areas clearly peaked in the third week, before I returned in the first few days of March. If 2020 were similar to 2016, surely we’d already be hearing “Hey, look at all this green growth” and seeing photos of a few early flowers. That may come this weekend as plant growth accelerates.

So rain in November before the December – January cooler period would have been better, but will the bloom be able to shift later, or will oncoming spring heat dry out the soil too fast, stunting the season’s potential? I suspect we’ll have a bit of both, but it may depend on the arrival of rain, or not, in the next 3-4 weeks.

So what weather is expected? It’ll be hotter this week into the mid-80s, then cooler the week of February 3, A weather service I subscribe to says,

“If retrogression of the ridge continues the week of the 10th it could finally open up the door to storms dropping into CA. The GFS models is becoming more aggressive with a forecast for the active phase of the MJO to move into the Indian Ocean week 2.”

In English that means that the 2-3 week time frame is the next opportunity for new rain, the week of February 10. Bear in mind that Furnace Creek gets an average of 1.9″ of rain per year, so it’s never particularly likely, it’s just a nice bonus when it does arrive, and Death Valley’s wildflowers have evolved to take full advantage of it while they can.

So a super bloom is possible, but not probable. Nevertheless, I expect that there will likely be some areas of very strong blooming, and it’ll be a better than typical or average year. The problem is, peaks can arrive quickly and be short, so unless you live a short distance from the Park and can hop in the car for a visit on short notice, by the time the timing is clear, it’ll be too late for most photographers to book a reasonably cheap plane ticket. So if you have to throw a dart in the board and commit to a time, what would it be as of today? First of all, I’d like to suggest that it’s better to be a little early than late. I’ve seen a strong brown-eyed primrose bloom decimated in a few days by hawk moth caterpillars, and when the primrose are gone they turn to other adjacent species.

Seeing ocean heat developing in early fall and hoping for a wet El Nino pattern, based on 2016 timing I scheduled a workshop in the 3rd week of February. That is a little earlier than what I’d expect for a typical patchy wildflower hunt in early to mid-March, but not by much. Hopefully we’ll find some nice early patches of wildflowers. Death Valley is stunning in any case (photos), and late February is still great timing for a visit, to avoid the 100-degree heat that can start to arrive on hotter days in early to mid-March.

After that February trip I can update the report & outlook for March. I have a vested interest in the conditions in March, as I’ll be leading another Death Valley workshop March 18-23, for members of PSA, the Photographic Society of America (registration just opened this morning, January 27).

How late might the season go? I’ve seen solid patches of wildflowers blooming in the lower elevations of Death Valley as late as April into early May, as happened in 2010. So a healthy bloom happening and/or lasting late into spring isn’t impossible, it’s just too early to tell. There are areas of Death Valley that typically bloom in late March and early April, so who knows, I may add a workshop around March 30 – April 4. If you can’t make the first two I’m offering or after they fill up, let me know if you’d want to hear about that third session if I add it to my 2020 Death Valley dates.

We had a much heavier storm pattern in December, even for Sierra Nevada snow. Hopefully we’ll get back into a wetter pattern in February, to give the plants that have already germinated a growth boost. If you’d like to see more photos of what you might see in Death Valley in the spring, here are more photos. If you’d like to plan your own visit on your own, my guidebook “Photographing California Vol. 2 – South” has an extensive chapter on Death Valley.