Revised full-bloom cherry blossom forecasts released for every prefecture in Japan

Sakura season is coming to Japan much earlier than usual this year, and here’s when to expect them to be their most beautiful.

Last weekend, the cherry blossoms proved once again that they’re Japan’s most fickle flowers, as the sakura began to bloom on the Somei Yoshino cherry tree in Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine (the designated tree that’s used for declaring the official start of sakura season in the capital). The first blossoming occurred on March 17, far earlier than normal for the flowers in this part of Japan. As a result, meteorologists have been scrambling to revise their sakura predictions, as lovers of flowers (and flower-viewing drinking parties) across Japan shuffle their schedules to fit in time to see the blossoms.

Starting in the south of Japan and working northward, meteorological service Weather Map’s latest estimates (released March 19) have the cherry blossoms beginning to bloom in Fukuoka on March 19, Osaka on March 23, Nagoya on March 19, Niigata on April 8, Sendai on April 6, and Sapporo on April 30.

Many of those are several days earlier than initial forecasts, although the gap between the original and revised dates gets smaller in colder regions to account for a dip in temperatures towards the end of this month.

Arguably more important than when the sakura will start to blossom, though, is when they’ll be in full bloom. Weather Map’s most recent calculations on that front are:

● Kanto region
Tokyo: March 25
Yokohama (Kanagawa Prefecture): March 28
Choshi (Chiba): March 31
Kumagaya (Saitama): March 30
Mito (Ibaraki): April 2
Utsunomiya (Tochigi): April 2
Maebashi (Gunma): April 1
Nagano: April 14
Kofu (Yamanashi): March 30

● Tokai/Hokuriku
Shizuoka: March 27
Nagoya (Aichi): March 27
Gifu: March 27
Tsu (Mie): March 30
Niigata: April 13
Toyama: April 7
Kanazawa (Ishikawa): April 6
Fukui: April 6

● Kinki
Hikone (Shiga): April 5
Kyoto: March 30
Osaka: March 30
Kobe (Hyogo): March 31
Nara: March 29
Wakayama: March 28

● Chugoku/Shikoku
Okayama: April 1
Hiroshima: April 1
Matsue (Shimane) : April 5
Tottori: April 2
Takamatsu (Kagawa) : April 1
Tokushima: March 31
Matsuyama (Ehime) : March 28
Kochi: March 19
Shimonoseki (Yamaguchi) : March 31

● Kyushu
Fukuoka: March 27
Oita: March 31
Nagasaki: March 27
Saga: March 29
Kumamoto: March 26
Miyazaki: March 24
Kagoshima: March 26

● Tohoku
Aomori: April 27
Akita: April 21
Morioka (Iwate): April 24
Sendai (Miyazaki): April 10
Yamagata: April 18
Fukushima: April 9

● Hokkaido
Sapporo: May 4
Hakodate: May 2

As always with the sakura, these could change as we get closer to these dates, but for now, these are the days you’re going to want to ditch school, call in sick to work, or otherwise keep clear.

Source: Weather Map
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert images: Weather Map, Pakutaso (1, 2, 3, 4)

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