LAUSR

California’s remote Anza-Borrego Desert, like other desert landscapes across the southwest of the United States, is valued by scientists, resource managers, and tourists alike for its perceived exceptional extremity. We analyze how climate extremes shape biological, socioeconomic, and cultural life through one of the desert’s most iconic ecological events: spring wildflower superblooms. Quantitative data relating wildflower superblooms and tourist visitation to interannual climate variation are at the center of our analysis, with additional literature review and qualitative ethnographic data used to lend context and engage deeply with the significance of the quantitative findings for local communities. Monthly visitation rates tracked precipitation, peaking during the end of the winter growing season when wildflowers reach peak bloom. Visitation more than doubled during the wettest years, corresponding to wildflower abundance and superbloom media coverage. Wildflower superblooms and extreme environmental events are socially and culturally significant in the desert communities. They loom large in memory, shape regular seasonal activities and attachment to place, and feature in local conflicts over resource management and planning for sustainable futures. Overall, we demonstrate how gateway communities contend with the desert’s ephemeral nature, and how climate change creates new and different extremes in these iconic desert landscapes.