The Best Spring Ever: Why El Nino Makes The Desert Bloom

The words El Nino make us think of weather - but El Nino is also a biological phenomenon. In the desert Southwest, where El Nino intensifies cool-season rain, wild flowers respond with spectacular displays, boosting the entire ecosystem. Pocket mice and harvester ants, coyotes and desert tortoises - all benefit directly or indirectly from the massive input of flowers, greenery, and seeds that typifies the best El Nino years...photographer Carll Goodpasture has captured the lushness of spring bloom after the El Nino of 1997/98 one of the strongest in recent memory...The text and captions by Janice Emily Bowers provide up-to-date information about El Nino and its influence on desert ecosystems. (excerpted from the inside front cover)