Associated Press
A small California city that was overrun by visitors four years ago when heavy winter rains produced a “super bloom” of wild poppies has a message for the public after this year's deluge: Do not come. The poppies are beginning to bloom but so far on a small scale — and the canyon where they grow and parking areas are now completely off-limits, Lake Elsinore Mayor Natasha Johnson told a press conference where she recounted the chaos of 2019. Poppies are found throughout California in spring and summer, but usually not as extensively as the blankets of gold that in 2019 covered slopes near Lake Elsinore, a city of 71,000 in Riverside County about 60 miles (96 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles.