An oasis full of ponds and wildflowers was created in Death Valley National Park, one of the hottest and driest places in the world, after the big hurricane this summer.

According to CNN, Hurricane Hillary, which hit the area in August, provided much-needed rainfall for the national park located in eastern California.

“This is definitely a rare and special event,” Death Valley National Park spokeswoman Abby Wines told CNN. Such rainfall only occurs once a decade, she added.

The hurricane reached Death Valley on August 19 and continued to flood the desert for 24 hours. Records show 2.2 inches (5.6 centimeters) of rain was measured in Furnace Creek, a 5,270-square-mile (13,650-square-kilometer) section of the national park, breaking the previous record of 1.7 inches (4.3 centimeters) set in 2022. . According to the National Park Service (NPS).

A month after the hurricane, park officials took a boat to the temporary lake formed in the Bedwater Basin, a salt flat that marks the park’s lowest point, and measured it to be about 0.3 meters deep. During this time the water receded only a few inches.

“I wish we knew exactly how long it would last,” Wines told CNN, but predicted the pool could last until November. If visitors want to see the oasis for themselves, “the sooner the better,” he suggested.

Due to flooding, authorities temporarily closed the park. The park later reopened, but many roads remain closed, according to NPS.

“All the trails in the park were damaged,” Wines told CNN. “We still have a lot of work ahead of us. It was raining heavily [і Хіларі]“And it takes time for all that water to evaporate, even in the desert.”

The last lake in Death Valley was formed in 2019 when a 10-mile (16-kilometer) body of water formed. Source