Death Valley, a famous national park in the United States, is known for being super dry, getting only about 2.2 inches of rain each year. It’s also known as the hottest place on Earth.
But something unusual happened recently. The park had to close for more than two weeks, and it’s not because of the scorching heat we often see during the summer. The reason? The rainy leftovers from Hurricane Hilary, a storm you might remember.
On August 20th, Death Valley got a whopping 2.2 inches of rain at a place called Furnace Creek. That’s the most rain ever recorded there! The National Park Service told us about it in a recent news release.
This big storm brought so much rain to a place that hardly ever saw it. It caused a lot of damage, like washing away parts of the roads and leaving debris everywhere.
Believe it or not, this is the second year in a row this has happened. Last August, there was so much rain that the park had to close to fix all the roads, trails, and buildings.
Now, they have to do all that work again because of this new storm. The National Park Service says they’ve already fixed the paved roads from last year’s flood, but there’s still a lot of work to do in the wild areas of the park. And the recent storm made things even worse.
Right now, there’s no telling when the park will reopen. The park’s Facebook page said on Labor Day that they don’t have a timeline yet because of all the damage caused by Tropical Storm Hilary.
If you were planning to visit a desert national park, you can still go to Joshua Tree National Park to the south. But be aware, they had a fire ban recently, which shows how unpredictable desert weather can be.
