Flowers to bloom earlier due to unusually warm winter

Home > National > Social Affairs

Flowers to bloom earlier due to unusually warm winter

Published: 26 Feb. 2024, 18:51 Updated: 26 Feb. 2024, 19:45

KIM JI-YE
kim.jiye@joongang.co.kr

A person takes photos of cornel blossoms in Suyeong District, Busan on Monday afternoon. [NEWS1]

Spring flowers are expected to bloom three to six days earlier than usual this year due to a warm winter.

This year’s cherry blossoms are expected to start to bloom on March 21 on Jeju Island, moving up to Korea's southern region from March 25 to 29 and the central inland area from March 30 to April 5, according to K Weather, a weather big data platform, on Sunday.

Seoul is expected to witness its first cherry blossoms on April 2, six days earlier than usual.

K Weather said that such move-ups are due to the warm winter.

Seoul’s average temperature was 1.1 degrees Celsius (34 degrees Fahrenheit) last December, 0.9 degrees Celsius higher than usual, and minus 0.5 degrees Celsius in January, 1.4 degrees Celsius higher than usual.

The gap only grew in February, when the average Seoul temperature between Feb. 1 and 20 was 4.1 degrees Celsius, fully 4.4 degrees Celsius higher than usual.

The Korea Meteorological Administration said there is an 80 percent possibility for next month’s temperature to be similar to or above the average annual temperature.

“February and March’s temperature strongly influences the blooming of cherry blossoms,” K Weather said. “The timing of blooming may vary depending on the temperature changes that occur just before the blossoming stage.”

Following the early blooming period, spring flower festival organizers such as local governments are rushing to prepare for spring events as most local governments plan out festivals based on K Weather’s forecast.

However, a significant problem may occur if the cherry blossoms bloom a week or weeks earlier than expected.

Last year, K Weather predicted cherry blossoms would bloom four to seven days earlier than usual. In reality, however, they flowered earlier than the expected dates.

Last year, the flowers bloomed seven to 16 days faster in the southern regions, forcing local governments to rush safety personnel to flower-viewing sites.

Some places had no flowers left to see during the actual festival as they had all fallen.

“We temporarily decided to start the spring flower festival in late March, considering that cherry blossoms started to bloom earlier than expected last year,” an official from the Yeongdeungpo District Office, which is planning Yeouido’s spring flower festival, told the JoongAng Ilbo.

"In the past few years, cherry blossoms have been blooming earlier than usual, so we cannot rule out the possibility that the same will happen this year," Ban Ki-sung, a senior managing director at K Weather, said.

“Spring flowers bloom faster when temperatures fluctuate widely, as opposed to a slow rise in temperature,” Prof. Jeong Su-jong at Seoul National University’s Graduate School of Environmental Studies said. “In other words, flowers bloom faster when it suddenly gets warm.”

People take pictures with their phones of the blooming plum blossom in Changwon, South Gyeongsang last Thursday. [YONHAP]

Plum blossoms also bloomed far earlier than usual due to the sudden warm weather.

Plum blossoms bloomed on Jan. 15 in Jeju Island this year, 32 days faster than usual, because of a significant temperature gap between the region’s cold and warm weather.

A total of 21 days hit midday temperatures above 10 degrees Celsius in Jeju last December, with high temperatures reaching as high as 17 degrees above the overnight lows.

Plum blossoms are currently in full bloom in southern regions such as Jeonju, Pohang, Ulsan, Gwangju, and Busan, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration.

The flowers have started to sprout in Seoul, Suwon, and Daejeon.

The sprouting date in Seoul was 20 days earlier than usual.

"Fruit cultivation will likely prove difficult like last year as the blossoming of flowers is connected to bee pollination and the harvest," Prof. Jeong added.

BY JEONG EUN-HYE [kim.jiye@joongang.co.kr]