Cherry Blossom Dates: Waiting for Official Word

The Cherry Blossom Festival is almost upon us, but we’re still awaiting official word on when we can expect those vibrant pink blooms themselves.

The National Park Service’s website says that while we know the festival will be taking place between March 20 and April 17, the peak bloom for 2016 remains to-be-determined.

NPS defines the peak bloom date as the day when 70 percent of the Yoshino Cherry blossoms have opened, an event that varies every year depending on the weather conditions. Typically, it happens either in the last week of March or the beginning of April, the service says on its website.

Once they bloom, the blossoms stay open for a few days, and exactly how long is also determined by weather conditions.

Realistically, we probably won’t know when peak bloom will be until about the middle of March, as “forecasting peak bloom is almost impossible more than 10 days in advance,” NPS states.

Last year, the first green buds appeared March 18 and peak bloom finally happened April 10. The blooms used to happen regularly in late March to April 1st at the latest, but for the last three years it hasn’t happened until April 9 or later.