NBC NEWS - In California’s boom-and-bust climate, Death Valley has offered some of the strangest scenes over the past few years.
Some of the area’s perennial creosote bushes died back during a severe drought that hampered the region through 2022. Then torrential downpours — from the remnants of Hurricane Hilary and subsequent storms — revived annual wildflowers from seed over the last year.
During the winter, extreme rainfall resurrected an ancient lake that is now disappearing once again.
“Death Valley is very extreme. You have to assume that plants and animals are adapted to the edges of what’s livable there. As it gets hotter, that gets to be more of a challenge,” said Lynn Sweet, a research ecologist at the University of California Riverside.