Dry winter threatens to cancel spring wildflower show

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | Monday, February 19, 2007 11:19 PM PST ∞

ANZA-BORREGO DESERT STATE PARK -- With the start time right around the corner for their annual desert wildflower show, the folks at California's largest state park are getting butterflies.

It is getting late in the rainy season, and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park has received hardly a drop of the nourishing moisture that usually triggers an explosion of color across the sandy horizon around this time of year. As a result, park officials say, this year's show may have to be canceled.

"Nobody's really sure exactly what is going to happen," said Michael Rodriques, interpreter and visitor center manager at Anza-Borrego. "We can only hope for some reasonably hard rains in March. Otherwise, we're not going to have a wildflower season."

About 550,000 people visit the vast state park in east San Diego County and a sliver of southern Riverside County each year, and the bulk of them come in spring because of the mild temperatures and wildflowers, said Roy Stearns, a spokesman for California's 1.5-million-acre state park system, in a telephone interview Monday.

"The desert bloom can change the place from this barren-looking landscape into this gorgeous carpet of flowers," Stearns said. "You get a little water in this place, a little rain, and there is this explosion of color."

A classic example was the display of spring 2005, one of the most vibrant in recent memory.

But Rodriques said the transformation depends on the arrival of occasional thunderstorms in the previous summer and a steady drumbeat of rain during the winter months -- and neither has occurred over the past year.

Rodriques said the park's Borrego Springs headquarters recorded just 0.04 inch of rain on Sunday night, bringing the seasonal total since last July to 0.32 inch. And while light rain was soaking much of North County on Monday, Borrego Springs remained dry, he said.

Of course, a "March miracle" with a blast of wet weather in the coming weeks could stimulate flowers to bloom, he said. Even so, he said, with so many months having already gone by without a drop, the flower forecast at this point is for a "spotty" display.

"It's not looking good," Rodriques said. "Certainly, there are not any flowers out here now."

This season's rain total is a tiny fraction of the 12.7 inches that fell in the 2004-05 season, he said. It's also a fraction of the average yearly total of 6 inches.

"We're all holding our breaths together," he said. "We love it when the flowers come, because the people come, and parks are for people."

Anza-Borrego, which at 600,000 acres is the largest state park in the continental United States, also is known for its breathtaking panoramic views, oases of native fan palms and diverse wildlife, such as the endangered peninsular bighorn sheep.

For information about the park, go to www.anzaborrego.statepark.org or call (760) 767-5311.

-- Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 740-5442 or ddowney@nctimes.com.

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