Hanami season

I've lived in Japan,  north of Tokyo on a couple occasions. Life in Japan is unique and enjoyable with many traditions that bring people together in celebration and include many matsuri (festivals) throughout the year and in different regions. Hanami parties were always a favorite for family, friends and coworkers. One occasion for celebration that brings everyone together is the Hanami season. The Hanami season is the cherry blossom viewing season and after the cold winter everyone is quite excited to get outside and picnic under the blossoming trees. Spring is here! Sometimes the temperatures can be a bit cool. Windy weather with rain showers can cut the season short. It is a special time of year. While there we also enjoyed some earlier signs of spring with the blooming of the plumb blossom trees (ume) earlier during February.The blossoms move like a wave from south-to-north through Japan and each year there is a forecast of predicted bloom times and their expected duration (see https://livejapan.com/en/article-a0001033/) and the figure below from this article. 

See also https://www.jrailpass.com/blog/japan-cherry-blossom-forecast

Of course, with climate on our minds one wonders how the blossom times have varied through the years. Do the blooms come earlier and earlier in the season? There are a few articles discussing anomalous October blooms. Visit https://phys.org/news/2018-10-blooming-early-japan-famed-cherry.html for example. The article suggests the early bloom may may have been due to significant loss of leaves due to strong typhoons and subsequent failure of the trees to release a hormone which prevents blooming. However one of our fellow learners @Danee O noted that there are varieties of cherry trees that bloom twice a year, and indeed a search reveals that this is true (see, for example, https://www.arborday.org/trees/treeguide/TreeDetail.cfm?ItemID=808). I think I will order one or two of these.

The predictions for the start of the 2019 hanami season also seem earlier than usual. There is an interesting plot of peak bloom in Kyoto carried through several centuries which shows a steady trend toward the early part of April, particularly over the past century https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2017/04/07/japans-cherry-blossoms-are-emerging-increasingly-early.

 This plot reveals an impressive 1200 year record of Cherry blossoming times in Kyoto. There is quite a bit of scatter in the reports, but the best fit trend has been toward earlier and earlier blooms for the last 200 years, with a marked steepening in this trend over the last 100 years.