Was 1998 a superbloom year?
A superbloom on the record
Yes — the National Park Service put 1998 on the record at Death Valley. We didn't decide that, and we don't decide any of them: the sources are on this page.
What the agency said
On the record with the National Park Service
Death Valley keeps a short list of its own superblooms, and 1998 is on it.
What made it: An El Niño winter pushed the storm track over the park, and the autumn before it delivered rain the desert normally waits years for.
Fall rain before it: 1.60", September through November, as Death Valley reports it. The park counts its autumn rain separately because a desert annual that never germinates in the fall has nothing to bloom with in the spring.
The park named 1998 in later releases rather than at the time — the record is a look back, not a bulletin.
The rain behind it: 1997–98
Our station totals do not reach back to the 1997–98 winter, so there are no rain figures to put beside this spring. What is on this page is the record itself — what the agency wrote down, and where.