It’s something like a California rainbow. After years of steady drought and fires, heavy rainfall quenches the earth and reawakens dormant native wildflower seeds, sprouting “superblooms” across the state and attracting snap-happy visitors hoping to catch a glimpse of the rare phenomenon blanketing the hillsides in vibrant swaths of yellow, blue, purple, and orange.
California’s wildflowers used to cover the landscape hundreds of years ago, when native flowers like the orange and yellow poppies were so prevalent during springtime that Chumash storytellers said the Channel Islands shone like gold in the sun. Nowadays, decades of sparse rainfall and wildfires have made the superblooms far less common. In fact, only every decade or so do conditions line up for wildflowers to make such an appearance, and the last time similar record-setting rainfall sprouted a psychedelic superbloom in Santa Barbara was back in 2019.
Now they’re back, resurrected by the recent deluge of winter rainstorms, painting the coastline and valleys in dreamlike shades of color for at least the next few weeks.
