Keep the ‘Beauty in the Bloom.’ Potential super blooms in California come with warnings

With the onslaught of rain, the upcoming wildflower season could bring “sea of rainbow colors” to California parks.

This year’s “wildflower season is expected to be an impressive one,” California State Parks said in a March 1 news release.

“We welcome all Californians and visitors from around the world to experience this natural phenomenon and ask all to keep the ‘Beauty in the Bloom’ by staying on designated trails and taking only photos, not flowers,” Armando Quintero, California State Parks director, said in the release.

In years past, public lands, including some state parks, were blanketed in wildflowers — a phenomenon known as super blooms, Quintero said.

Will there be a super bloom?

Wildflowers carpeted a number of state parks, including Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve SNR, Anza-Borrego Desert SP and Ocotillo Wells State Vehicular Recreation Area, in 2017, 2019 and 2023, according to the department.

The phenomenon attracted “hundreds of thousands of people from around the world,” the department said.

Super blooms usually come about when there are long periods of drought followed by “a year where you get more than average rain,” Jorge Moreno, a spokesperson for California State Parks, told McClatchy News in a phone interview last March.

Unpredictable, such large blooms require nearly “perfect conditions,” Moreno said.

The amount of wildflower blooms is contingent on a handful of factors, including rain levels, the timing of rainfall, sunlight, humidity and seasonal temperature, according to the department. These factors also contribute to “the bloom timing.”

With the amount of rain California saw last fall and this winter, “public land managers are expecting a ‘good’ to ‘better-than-average’ wildflower blooms in spring, depending on the continued weather conditions.”

Which parks are seeing blooms?

At Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, the state’s largest park in San Diego County, blooms are popping up in a number of areas, “like Borrego Springs along Henderson Canyon Road, the lower sandy dune portions of Coyote Canyon and in the southern portion of the state park along Highway S2 southeast of Agua Caliente County Park.”

Some early blooms of primrose, phacelia and wooly sunflower are also popping up near “June Wash moving northeast toward Fish Creek and Arroyo Tapiado,” park officials said.

Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve State Natural Reserve is seeing “sporadic individual poppies” starting to bloom, the department said.

“If the weather remains mild, the bloom is expected to be better this year compared to last year,” park officials said. “If the weather turns hot, this could affect the bloom in the next few months.”

In other parks, like Red Rock Canyon State Park and Chino Hills State Park, where there aren’t quite signs of a bloom just yet, it is expected they will see “good wildflower blooms from mid-March to May, and into the spring season,” the department said.

For updates on the various parks’ blooms, visitors can check the department’s Flower Blooms Updates page.

Tips before you go

California State Parks said visitors should understand the areas they plan to visit. In some areas, cell service is limited, the department said, and guests should prepare for that.

Before arriving, guests should also check the weather, the department said.

“Be prepared and plan for all types of weather,” officials said.

Lastly, state park officials urged visitors to know their own body’s limitations.

As “there are often no restaurants, gasoline stations or stores near the bloom areas,” visitors should come prepared with “plenty of food and water,” the department said.

To beat the crowds, guests are encouraged to plan to visit the parks during the week as opposed to the weekend, the department said.

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