California is exploding with superblooms this year. Here’s why.

Patches of wildflowers are so vibrant and abundant across California that their hues look like paint swatches from space.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey, April 15, 2023.Photos via NASA Earth Observatory

An unusually wet winter led an abundance of poppies and lupine — among other wildflowers — to crop up alongside California’s roadways, trails and fields.

These explosions of floral growth are often called “superblooms.” CapRadio’s Drew Sandsor spoke with UC Davis Professor of Ecosystem Management and Restoration, Dr. Valerie Eviner, about what defines a superbloom and where to find good viewing spots.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Interview Highlights

On what defines a superbloom

In general, [a superbloom] is lots of flowers [with]lots of [ground] coverage. And different people have different opinions — some people will say it's just full coverage of flowers … others may say it's a diversity of lots of different flowers.

So the quality of the superbloom may be different in different people's eyes, but essentially it's that when you go outside and you look and you're just knocked over by how many flowers are sort of yelling out at you from the landscape.

On how California’s wet winter may have impacted flower growth

I'd say for Southern California and the deserts, 100% of those [flowers] are very much drought-adapted species. The seeds hang out in the soil waiting for these rains, and when the rains hit, they really come out.

On the difference between superblooms in Northern California versus Southern California

In Northern California, we don't really have superblooms the same way that Southern California does. Usually the best places to see great wildflowers in California tend to be places where the grasses don't do well. Jepson Prairie [in Solano County] is a great example [of that] because there are vernal pools that are seasonally flooded, and so grasses just can't handle that — but a lot of our native wildflowers can. It's good to keep an eye out on their social media to see when those vernal pools are draining; that's the best time to go and see the flowers there.

Another great place, and one of my favorites every year, is North Table Mountain, the ecological preserve up above Oroville. Again, the reason why that tends to be a reliable blooming area is because the soils there are lava soils. They hold water in a different way and so the wildflowers tend to do very good there, and the grasses, not as well. That's a fabulous place to go right now.