The Festival Begins

The Cherry Blossom Festival is in full swing. The trees are cooperating, but the weather is cool and overcast. The wind is light, so the petals are sticking to the trees. Some of the trees are in full bloom, but there are many that are still mostly buds.

The white caps on the Tidal Basin are gone, so the rental paddle boats are becoming popular. Hundreds of bus loads of students are unloading in the Mall area. Hooded fleece sweatshirts seem to be the style of the day.


Photographers are everywhere. They are settling for soft, gray light today.

Spring 2009

The blooming of the Cherry Blossom Trees around the Tidal Basin of Washington, DC is a sure sign of spring. Predicting the peak blossom date is more art than science. The National Park Service watches several indicator trees, most of them not cherry blossom trees, that indicate about a week in advance when the blossoms will reach their peak. Then nature intervenes with rain, cold, wind, and sun, and often makes the Park Service a bad guesser.

Today, Monday, March 30, 2009, has a lot of trees in bloom, some already in peak bloom. The weather has been in the forties for most of the day, but is warming a bit. The wind is strong, but it is not knocking down many of the cherry blossoms because that have not completely opened. A wind this strong in a couple of days will cover the ground with petals.

A couple of thousand cherry blossom trees planted on East Potomac Park are just beginning to bloom. The side of the park on the Washington Channel has trees in fuller bloom than the colder side on the Potomac River. Around the Tidal Basin itself about one-half the trees are in bloom. By Friday it should be spectacular, with pink and white cherry blossoms all around the Jefferson Memorial.