Looking Forward to the Cherry Blossoms?

Cherry Blossom Along the Tidal Basin, Washington, D.C.

The month of March typically features a wide variety of weather in the Nation’s Capital from major winter storms to record warmth.  In fact, today’s record highs at the area’s three major airports occurred relatively recently in 2006.

For a second consecutive year March has gotten off to a significantly colder than average start with record cold and snowfall.  In fact, National Airport saw their largest snowfall of the winter last Thursday when 4.8” fell.  Meanwhile, Dulles Airport set two more record lows this past Friday and Saturday.  That puts their total number of new record lows at 7 so far in 2015.  Baltimore has also seen ample cold so far this year with 6 record lows just since February 1. 

However, most people have been happy that the pendulum has swung to milder temperatures this week.  That’s because the jet stream (a river of air in the atmosphere that helps guide storm track and movement of air masses) has shifted again allowing for temperatures to moderate across the Mid-Atlantic Region.  Washington, D.C., saw a high temperature of 62 degrees yesterday which was their highest temperature since a record high of 68 on February 8.  These milder temperatures have allowed the recent snowfall to melt gradually.  Since most of the snow has already melted over the last few days, today’s rainfall shouldn’t cause significant flooding in the DC Metro Region. 

Last week the U.S. National Park Service announced the expected dates for peak bloom of the cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin.  They are a little later than normal this year (from April 11 – April 14) because of the significant cold during much of the last two months.  Although the average peak bloom for the cherry blossoms is April 4, they have occurred as early as March 20 in 2012.  March 2012 was the warmest March on record in the Nation’s Capital and had 10 days with temperatures in the 70s and 4 days in the 80s. 

The National Park Service defines “peak bloom” of the cherry blossoms as when 70% of the blossoms along the Tidal Basin are open.  This Friday will be the 22^nd anniversary of the “Superstorm of 1993” when record snowfall occurred up and down the East Coast.  Locally, 6.6” of snow fell downtown, while 14.1” fell at Dulles Airport and 11.9” fell in Baltimore.  2’ to 3’ snow totals were common in the mountains north and west of town.  The cherry blossoms didn’t reach peak bloom in 1993 until April 11, which is similar to this year’s expected peak bloom.  Peak bloom last year came on April 10.

My colleagues and I on the WUSA9 weather team will track the latest weather conditions the next few weeks as the time approaches for the highly anticipated peak bloom of the world-famous cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin.