A rare bloom in Chile’s Atacama desert has briefly transformed one of the world’s driest places into a dazzling carpet of fuchsia-colored wildflowers.

The arid region — considered the driest nonpolar desert on Earth, averaging some 2 millimeters (0.08 inches) of rainfall a year — was a riot of color this week after unusual downpours throughout the Southern Hemisphere’s winter months soaked the desert foothills and highlands.

Experts describe 2025 as among the Atacama’s wettest in recent years, with some high-elevation borderlands receiving up to 60 millimeters of rain (2.3 inches) in July and August.

Seeds from more than 200 flower species sit in the red and rocky soil of the Atacama Desert all year, awaiting the winter rains, said Víctor Ardiles, chief curator of botany at Chile’s National Museum of Natural History.

Moisture from the Amazon basin arrives to the desert’s eastern fringes as modest rainfall and from the Pacific Ocean to its coastline as dense fog.

Dormant seeds must store up at least 15 millimeters (0.6 inches) of water to germinate.

“We understand that there is a threshold that must exceed 15 ml of rainfall for the seeds to begin to activate. But in addition to water or precipitation, we need temperature, we need a certain number of hours of daylight, and we also need humidity.” Ardiles said.

Yet even then there’s no guarantee that brightly colored bulbs will explode through the soil.

The main threads in the floral carpet are pink and purple. But yellow, red, blue and white strands emerge as well.

Tourists flocked to the northern desert in recent days to marvel at the short-lived flower show. Some even trek from Chile's capital, Santiago, 800 kilometers south of the Copiapó region.

Most flowers will have vanished by November, as summer sets in. But more drought-resistant species can stick around until January.

Recognizing the ephemeral desert flowers as a conservation priority, Chilean President Gabriel Boric minted a new national park further inland in 2023, converting about 220 square miles (570 square kilometers) of flower fields along the Pan-American Highway into Desert Bloom National Park.

“Nowhere on Earth does this phenomenon occur like it does here in Chile,” Ardiles said.

AP Video by Mauro Medel