Less than one month ago, I wrote about how spring was running 20 days early. The plants and flowers that scientists use as indicators of spring were leafing and budding nearly three weeks ahead of schedule.
Just days after I wrote that, the pattern changed dramatically. All of a sudden, we were talking about nor’easters and multiple feet of snow in New England. Here in Washington, temperatures went from record-warm to below-average seemingly overnight.
That led us to push back our cherry blossom forecast earlier this week.
“The cold weather we’ve observed so far in March has slowed down the progress of cherry blossoms toward peak bloom,” Jason Samenow wrote Monday. “With cooler-than-normal weather predicted over the next one to two weeks, at least, we’re pushing our original forecast for peak bloom back … to March 30 to April 3, centered on April 1.”
The National Park Service pushed its forecast back, as well, to March 27-31.
[The latest cherry blossom forecast]
Technically, spring is still 20 days ahead of normal. It’s something that can’t retrograde. Buds and leaves can’t backtrack; instead, they are left hanging on the vine, so to speak, waiting for the temperatures to rise again.
Interestingly, even though Washington hasn’t had any truly springlike warmth since February, Mother Nature is still taking its course — albeit slowly.
I was surprised to see a photo of daffodils blooming in the District on March 11. The cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin, which usually stop progressing when temperatures get too cold in the spring, have continued to make small moves over the past couple of weeks, according to the National Park Service.
It’s interesting to see the flowers bloom despite the odds, but it’s also worrisome as even colder weather approaches. One of several drawbacks to an earlier spring is the risk of a late frost or freeze, which can damage — if not kill — anything that has bloomed thus far.
Inside the Beltway, temperatures have stayed only marginally above freezing during recent nights. Outside the Beltway and away from the urban warmth, overnight lows have been in the 20s on the majority of nights this month.
That is the hazard with an early spring — Mother Nature tries to stay on schedule, but the weather isn’t adhering to the schedule anymore. As the weather continues to change, plants will struggle to keep up.
