Rare wild flowers flowering blankets in Chile’s Atacama Desert

The Atacama Desert in Chile sits long and slender, stuck between the Andes and the Pacific Mountains.

The extreme dryness of the desert makes it one of the most vivid places on Earth to see the night sky and is known for being home to the largest radio telescope in the world.

But usually the barren landscape is transformed by a carpet of colored wild flowers, which are lively by significant rainfall during the winter months of the Southern Hemisphere.

It is believed that this is an event that only happens every few years when the desert floor soaks over medium rainfall, causing sleeping seeds to come to life.

The Atacama Desert usually gets less than 15 mm rain every year.

But the area had more than 12 mm rain in August only – most of which fell only one day.

The desert even saw a rarely blanket of snow in June.

This magnificent flowering is made up of more than 200 different types of wild flowers, some of which do not grow anywhere else in the world. It usually happens between late August and November.

Although rare, this phenomenon also happened in 2024, after heavy rainfall in the area.

This year’s display will be on top for a few more weeks, according to CONAF, the National Forest Corporation of Chile.