Death Valley Strangely About To Become A Flowery Paradise

Death Valley, California looked anything
but dead in this photo of the last super
 bloom in 2016. It looks like Death
Valley is on the verge of a new 
super bloom.  Photo from Wildlife
Trekking/Facebook.

Work with me here, but I really wish I was in Death Valley now.

I know, I know . Why would I want to go to a ridiculously hot place that's barren, sandy, rocky and sometimes dangerous? 

The reason to go is a relatively rare super bloom of flowers that is just beginning to blossom into desert gorgeousness.    Since my big perennial beds in Vermont are buried beneath a foot of snow and are frozen rock solid, you can understand my reasoning. I desperately need winter flower therapy. 

Death Valley super blooms come maybe once in a decade. Park rangers there say there was one in 2016 and another in 2005. It was a pretty good flower year in 2024, but last year was pretty colorless amid drought and early season heat. 

Though a few flowers and interesting plants sprouts every year in February and March, this year's Death Valley Dream looks like it might be spectacular.  

To be Captain Obvious, Death Valley doesn't get a lot of rain. To get a super bloom, you need some heavy showers that come just at the right time.    The best time for that is late autumn or very early winter. 

This past November was soggy by Death Valley standards. They got 1.76 inches of rain, compared to normal of just 0.10. 

Next, you need warm weather. Temperatures have been above normal in the region over much of the winter. 

A cool spell is moving in to Death Valley, but it won't be enough to harm any plants. Plus, some more showers are likely daily today through Tuesday night. 

After this latest bout of rain, temperatures look like they'll start to warm up again in the desert, with temperatures maybe reaching close to 80 in about a week and a half. 

So it looks good. 

Super blooms go fast, as the desert designs plants so that they quickly sprout from seeds, produce flowers, then convert those flowers to a lot more seeds for next time. This will all happen well before summer, for good reason, Death Valley is the hottest place on earth. Summertime temperatures regularly go into the 110s and 120s,   . 

The best time to see the blooms is now through early April.  Wonderful flowers last into May in higher elevations. You can find some great flowers and plants as late as July way up high around 8,000 feet or higher. But who wants to climb a steep desert mountain when the temperatures is higher than the hot chocolate or coffee you're drinking as you read this.

Alas, I won't be going out to Death Valley for this year's super  bloom. But I hope other people do, and post what they see on line for the world to see.

VIDEO

That last Death Valley Super Bloom was in 2016.  Associated Press video walks you through how it looked like. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.

Heat Looms Coast To Coast, But Especially In The West

Midsummer flowers, including day lilies, hollyhocks and
astilbe, enjoy a refreshingly cool start to the day today
in St. Albans, Vermont. Humidity is set to return
Wednesday for what looks like an extended stay 

 I have to say Monday was my version of a perfect summer day in Vermont. 

Warmish, but by no means hot, humidity was perfectly reasonable, a sunny sky was dotted by a few pretty clouds and a soft breeze blew around lovely scents of flowers and forests, and kept the bugs at bay. 

After a comfortably cool dawn, we have another gorgeous one on the way today. Then the humidity returns. Probably for an extended stay. 

The pattern in the coming days is a lot like what has long been predicted for the summer. 

Heat will be concentrated on the West Coast and Intermountain West, and more or less along the East Coast. Nobody, really anywhere in the nation will experience truly cool weather, unless you include Alaska, of course. 

The weather pattern in the coming weeks might or might not hold for the rest of the summer. But long range forecasts call for warm to hot weather lasting for quite awhile, even if a few brief cool breaks sneak their way into New England every once in while.

 At least for now, the stronger of the two heat domes is in the West. Here in the Northeast, it will definitely be warm and humid, but at least in the immediate future, we in Vermont will escape the true torrid heat, like the kind we suffered through in mid-June. 

Weak weather fronts will keep cutting off the hottest, most humid air at the pass, keeping it mostly south of Vermont. There won't be much oomph from Canada, so those fronts won't exactly push in the refreshing air, either. 

So, it'll be mostly highs in the 80s, lows in the 60s, rather humid, with chances for showers or thunderstorms at times for at least the next week in Vermont.  You might have to water the garden, though. Most of the rain looks scattered and not super impressively heavy, except in local thunderstorms that won't cover much area. 

WESTERN HEAT

While much of the nation will be hot, even dangerously hot, the real epicenter of the heat this week is in the West.

Record highs will surely be broken in what is expected to be a long lasting hot spell.

Sacramento is forecast to endure five consecutive days of temperatures at or above 109 degrees. Previously, they've never had more than three consecutive days such days there, so if the forecast holds, that will be an impressive record. 

Redding, California at last report, was expecting a high of 117 by later in the week. That city's all time record high is 118 degrees, so that will be close. 

As the Washington Post tells us, here's the expected daily  highs this week, today through Sunday in Death Valley: 122, 125, 127,128,128 and 129.

The hottest reliably measured temperature on record in Death Valley is 130 degrees. A 134 degree reading measured there in 1913, but that mark is considered unreliable and suspect.  

The heat wave is expected to poke up into the Pacific Northwest, where Portland, Oregon expects a high of 101 degrees this coming Saturday. 

The extreme heat and dry conditions are raising the risks of wildfires, which of course are even harder to control when firefighters are dealing with temperatures in the 100s and 110s. 

This kind of thing is consistent with climate change. There's heat waves every summer, of course. But the trend is for longer, more intense hot spells, and the western heat coming up seems like an example of this. 

It's only early July. We'll probably be dealing with heat waves right through Labor Day, so buckle up.