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Atacama Desert Blooms

Chile's Atacama Desert, one of the world's driest places, is now flush with flowers after an unexpected rain.

The desert typically gets just 0.6 inches (15 millimeters) of rain a year. Even so, it's earned the name "desierto florido" (flowering desert) from locals because whenever it rains enough, dormant seeds in the soil take root, and burst into a wide array of yellow, orange, green, purple and red.

These "super blooms" typically happen every five to seven years because of El Niño, a climatic cycle in the Pacific Ocean. But the last super blooms sprung up in 2015, making this one a colorful and fragrant surprise.