Tokyo: Cherry blossom begins to bloom

The season of Cherry blossom (sakura) flourishing officially started on Saturday.

Capital's meteorological office informed as meteorologists checked the sample tree at the Shinto shrine of Yasukuni early in the morning.

According to them, sakura started flourishing this year started twelve days earlier than usual and seven days earlier than in 2019. The central part of Tokyo, approximately from 14:00 local time, began to cover with snow, and air temperature rapidly plummeted up to 2 degrees Celsius. At the same time, Japanese meteorologists expect temperature's warming up to 25 degrees next week.

But unfortunately, for residents and foreign tourists, they, most probably, will not have a possibility to enjoy sakura's flourishing due to coronavirus danger. Authorities have already asked citizens to give up picnics in parks during flourishing. Although we are talking about open spaces, cities' authorities decided that picnics could cause danger in terms of the virus's spread control.

Japanese people consider sakura as a beautiful symbol of their country, and its flower has the status of an unofficial national emblem. A peak of flourishing usually comes in early April.