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Plum trees already blossoming in Kagawa; earliest ever

12 Comments

Plum trees have already started to blossom in Takamatsu City, Kagawa Prefecture, due to the mild winter. It is the earliest that the plum trees have blossomed since the city started keeping records.

The trees are about 50 years old and located in Kuribayashi Park. Visitors found some were blooming on Sunday, Fuji TV reported. Meteorological observatory staff confirmed five to six flowers had started to blossom.

Flowers blooming in mid-December is a very rare sight in Japan.

The temperature in Takamatsu City on Monday was 16.4 degrees which was 4 degrees higher than average, equivalent to mid-November.

A spokesman for the Japan Meteorological Agency said the recent warm temperatures might have "fooled the trees into thinking that spring has come."

The agency says the mild autumn and early winter weather is due to the El Nino phenomenon which is at its peak now. El Nino is a warming of sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific.

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12 Comments
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oh jolly joy, I cant wait to be herded through the cherry blossoms with the other 100,000+ people all wanting to do the same thing. Cherry blossoms are only interesting to see once.....ONCE!

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

Scary. When mother nature fools herself! wtf-

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Cherry blossoms in D.C., happening now.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

The problem is that plants and animals act according to different stimuli - plants according to climate triggers and animals due to their circadian clock. If the two are out of sync, the plants lose their chance for pollination and the animals their chance for food.

As an example, think of the migratory hummingbird, a little guy who weighs as much as a coin and needs to consume his weight in pollen each day. If he arrives at his traditional spring migratory grounds to find the flowers have already blossomed, he will die. https://www.audubon.org/content/hummingbirds-home-effects-climate-change-feeding-behavior

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Just to note, this is not cheery blossom this is plum blossom which always comes earlier.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

When do they typically blossom then?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Global warming evidence?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@ Danny Bloom

"Global warming evidence?"

more like global warming propaganda.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Global warming evidence?

more like global warming propaganda.

This spate of unusual warmth is more attributable to the El Nino effect than global warming. Global warming IS happening, but only a tenth or two of a degree every year and not the tens of degrees we're seeing with this round of warmth. Additionally, you can't look at temps in your local area and attribute them to the whole world. We're getting unseasonably warm temperatures here in the D.C. area as well, but by Saturday things are supposed to drop back down into a more normal range.

@Kobe White Bar Owner, Not a single scientist on the face of the planet denies global warming is currently happening. Where the controversy is located is whether human-generated hydrocarbon emissions are contributing to the warming.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Just to note, this is not cheery blossom this is plum blossom which always comes earlier. oh ok well thats different then, plum blossoms always have that extra level of excitement over the cherry!

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

It's not so rare in Kagawa to get plums blossoming in mid-January - although mid February is more the norm - but mid December is almost unheard of.

The unseasonal activity is almost surely to be, as others indicated, a direct result of el nino and the consistent movement of warm air across Shikoku this autumn together with more frequent rainfall.

These conditions are due to change from today as cold air moves in from the north and will knock off the remaining colored leaves from the trees, which should have fallen 1 month ago.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Im not a botanist but where i walk my dogs is a plum tree and it always blossoms around Christmas time and this is Hyogo.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

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