Well, it has been a wet, cool Spring for Death Valley so far. Normally the flowers start blooming in mid-March, but they didn't start until the second week of April. The El Nino weather pattern is keeping things moist and cool (for the desert).
Since last Friday, we had about three days of 98 degrees (the hottest days yet), then on Tuesday (4/20) it finally broke 100 degrees (101 officially). Wednesday it dropped thirty degrees, the high was 70 degrees and it sprinkled a little on and off throughout the day. Today, it rained pretty steadily twice, the high was in the mid 70s. For two days everyone has been wearing jeans, sweatshirts, and jackets. This is unheard of for the third week of April. I asked around at work and the folks that have been here over ten years say they have never experienced weather like this during this time of year. It happened in March of 2005, the last El Nino year, but never April.