Poppy superbloom in the California desert
Today’s Image of the Day from NASA Earth Observatory features a “superbloom” of poppies and wildflowers across Antelope Valley in Southern California.
The poppy season in this desert region depends entirely on precipitation. After a very rainy winter season, the brilliantly colored flowers have exploded this year.
The image was captured on April 2, 2019 by NASA Armstrong aerial photographer Jim Ross from from a T-34 airplane. There are three main deserts in California: the Mojave Desert, the Colorado Desert, and the Great Basin Desert.:408 The Mojave Desert is bounded by the Tehachapi Mountains on the northwest, the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains on the south, and extends eastward to California’s borders with Arizona and Nevada; it also forms portions of northwest Arizona. The Colorado Desert lies in the southeastern corner of the state, between the Colorado River and the Transverse Ranges, and continues into Mexico and Arizona to the south and east, (as the named Sonoran Desert). The Great Basin desert lies immediately to the east of the Sierra Nevada cordillera and extends eastward into the state of Nevada.
The deserts encompass all of Imperial County, the southern and eastern portion of Inyo County, the Eastern portions of Mono County, Los Angeles County, Kern County, San Diego County, and Riverside County, and most of northern and eastern San Bernardino County. The major urban populations of western San Diego County, Orange County, the Inland Empire, and Greater Los Angeles are over the high mountains toward the Pacific Ocean.
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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer
Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
