March 05, 2024
Thom Carroll/for PhillyVoice
The Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia, which hosts Philly's annual cherry blossom festival, predicts the trees will hit peak bloom during the first week of April, lining up closely with last year's timeline.
Philadelphia is just a month away from cherry blossom season, according to one expert prognosticator.
Sandi Polyakov, the head gardener at the Shofuso Japanese Cultural Center, predicts a peak bloom around the first week of April. This would put the blossoms on pace with last year's timeline.
"Upcoming weather trends can certainly stall or hasten things; but the blossoms have already begun their development process," Polyakov said in a March 1 statement. "Based on the story the buds are telling us, it appears we're roughly four weeks out from the full-bloom show."
Polyakov said that while some of the trees, such as the Okame and Higgan varieties, began blooming in late February, most of the city's cherry trees are still in the earliest stage of development. Those include the Yoshino cherry trees planted along the Skuylkill River and in West Fairmount Park, where the center is based. The center is operated by the Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia, whose annual cherry blossom festival is scheduled for Saturday, April 13, through Sunday, April 14.
Morris Arboretum, another popular destination for cherry blossom tourists, projects a similar timeline. The arboretum's director of horticulture, Vince Marrocco, placed peak bloom between March 30 and April 2. Though it's not so different from the 2023 cherry blossom season, Marrocco stresses that the current trend is ahistorical.
"Peak bloom in March would have been unheard of 30 years ago," he explained via email. "Cherries basically produce their flowers based on how long the ambient temperature has been above 50°F. This year, with all the warm weather we’ve had and the amount of warm weather we are predicted to have, the forecast is very early.
"I suspect a lot of things will be early this year too. Maybe this isn’t an anomaly, but the new norm?"
According to the National Park Service, peak bloom is "almost impossible" to conclusively predict more than 10 days in advance, since the blossoms' development is so dependent on weather conditions. But cherry trees in the U.S. have been blooming a bit earlier in recent years. The famous collection on the National Mall has reached peak bloom in the penultimate week of March for the past two years, and 2024 looks no different. Philadelphia's peak bloom typically follows about a week after D.C.'s.
This story has been updated with comments from Vince Marrocco.
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