El Niño brings rare flowering to Chile's Atacama Desert

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This year's exceptionally strong El Niño has brought a rare gift to Chile's Atacama Desert : rain. In one of the driest places on Earth, that rare moisture has awakened millions of seeds and bulbs that can remain dormant underground for years, transforming the landscape into a spectacular carpet of color.

Known locally as " desierto florido ," or "flowering desert," the phenomenon is one of nature's most remarkable transformations. Patches of purple, pink, white, red and yellow now spread across hillsides and plains that for much of the year appear almost completely lifeless.

"It is a unique phenomenon; there are more than 200 plant species," Jorge Carabantes, head of the Protected Areas Department at the National Forest Corp. (CONAF) in Chile, told The Associated Press . "This is a flowering event that is obviously extraordinary and unusual, very different from other blooms that occur elsewhere on the globe."

Typically, the Atacama gets just 0.6 inches (15 mm) of rain a year. But thanks to the super El Niño , record levels of rain fell between July and August in several Chilean regions, including levels not seen since the 1950s, with some areas receiving more than 7 inches (190 millimeters), Carabantes told the AP.

While this unprecedented precipitation has caused flooding in some areas of Chile, it's created a 6,560-square-mile (17,000 square kilometers) swath of flowering blooms across the Atacama Desert. This is the most extensive desert bloom since 1997, CONAF representatives told the AP.

For photographers and tourists, the landscape is breathtaking, with bright colors contrasted against the dark Atacama mountains and Chile's cloudless skies. But the bloom is fleeting; by the end of the Southern Hemisphere's spring, many of the flowers will disappear, leaving behind seeds and bulbs waiting for the next extraordinary rains.

Here are five photos from Getty Images photographer Javier Torres that showcase the beauty of this rare event.

Flowers bloom on the plains near the Atacama Desert near Copiapó, Chile, with the Chilean flag in the background. (Image credit: JAVIER TORRES via Getty Images )

Tourists admire the purple blossoms of the desert flowers. (Image credit: JAVIER TORRES via Getty Images)

The plains of the Atacama Desert are carpeted by brilliant blooms, with the mountains in the distance. (Image credit: JAVIER TORRES via Getty Images)

A rainbow glows over purple flowers in Chile's Atacama Desert. (Image credit: JAVIER TORRES via Getty Images)

Cacti mix with blooming wildflowers in the Atacama Desert. (Image credit: JAVIER TORRES via Getty Images) RELATED STORIES

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