Was 2005 a superbloom year?
A superbloom on the record
Yes — the National Park Service and California State Parks put 2005 on the record at Death Valley and Anza-Borrego. 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 and California State Parks
Death Valley counts 2005 among its superblooms, and California State Parks called that spring at Anza-Borrego one of the greatest blooms in a decade or more.
What made it: An El Niño winter again: a wet autumn in Death Valley followed by storms that kept coming, and better than eight inches across the season at Anza-Borrego.
Fall rain before it: 2.70", 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.
NPS — Death Valley wildflowers · California State Parks, January 2005
The rain behind it: 2004–05
Our station totals do not reach back to the 2004–05 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.