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A Fault Line in Full BloomImage of the Day for March 23, 2026
Plains around the San Andreas Fault and across Carrizo Plain National Monument are awash with yellow as wildflowers bloom.
NASA Earth Observatory
Mar 23, 2026 Article
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March 5 March 13 Wildflower blooms appear as yellow patches at the center of satellite images centered on Carrizo Plain National Monument. The blooms spread and intensify between March 5 and March 13.NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin Wildflower blooms appear as yellow patches at the center of satellite images centered on Carrizo Plain National Monument. The blooms spread and intensify between March 5 and March 13.NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin March 5March 13
March 5, 2026 – March 13, 2026
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Golden wildflowers color the Carrizo Plain and surrounding Southern California landscape in these images captured on March 5, 2026 (left), and March 13, 2026 (right), by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 and Landsat 9, respectively.NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren DauphinWhether it qualifies as a "superbloom" is in the eye of the beholder, but there is no doubt that California's Carrizo Plain and the neighboring mountain ranges were awash with color as wildflowers put on their annual show in spring 2026.
Landsat satellites began to show the early signs of color in February. By early March, flowers had turned areas around Soda Lake a bright shade of yellow, and by mid-month, they had spread even farther. Yellow wildflower blooms are visible amid the dendritic network of streams flanking the alkaline lake, which dries out completely during drought years. Colors were particularly vibrant across the Carrizo Plain National Monument, even decorating meadows along the zipper-shaped San Andreas Fault with splashes of purple due to blooms of Wildflowers bloom along the San Andreas Fault in this image acquired on March 13, 2026, by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 9.NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin Winter 2025-2026 brought bouts of rain and variable conditions that benefited wildflowers. Soaking rains saturated soils in November and December, bringing rainfall totals to nearly twice the usual level, according to a report from the California Department of Water Resources. Angel and Goddard colleague Andres Baresch were in the field in Carrizo Plain National Monument on March 13 taking spectral measurements of blooming wildflowers as Landsat acquired one of the images shown above. They are in the process of developing a global flower monitoring system that will integrate observations from the ground with those from space-based sensors such as OLI on Landsat 8 and 9 and EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation) on the International Space Station to track the progression of blooms.
"This was the perfect opportunity to test how well our models scale between the ground and satellites," she said. "We were fortunate to have a huge number of seeds germinate and bloom simultaneously because last year was so dry and this winter was so wet."
Gold and purple wildflowers bloom in Carrizo Plain National Monument on March 7, 2026.Photograph by Erin Berkowitz NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Photos courtesy of Erin Berkowitz and Andres Baresch. Story by Adam Voiland.
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References & Resources
- Angel, Y., et al. (2025) Deciphering the spectra of flowers to map landscape-scale blooming dynamics. Ecosphere, 16(2), e70127.
- Bureau of Land Management (2026, February 9) Wildflower season arrives at Carrizo Plain National Monument and other BLM-managed public lands. Accessed March 19, 2026.
- California Department of Water Resources (2026, March 16) California Hydrology Update. Accessed March 19, 2026.
- Flora (2026) Plain Beautiful. Accessed March 19, 2026.
- The Globe Program (2025, May 14) Wildflowers. Accessed March 19, 2026.
- Rahimi, E. & Jung, C. (2025) A review of remote sensing applications in flower phenology detection. Journal of Ecology and Environment, 49,05.
- The Tribune (2026, March 13) Colorful wildflowers blooming across Carrizo Plain. See photos. Accessed March 19, 2026.
- The Wild Flower Hotline, via Spotify (2026, March 13) Superbloom Season? Accessed March 19, 2026.
- U.S. Drought Monitor (2025, December 4) Drought Status Update for California-Nevada. Accessed March 19, 2026.
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