This comes as Tokyo suffers the double whammy of warmer temperatures and the “heat island effect”.
TOKYO – Tokyo is poised to buck historical trends and become the first area on mainland Japan where the famous sakura flower and enter full bloom.
Tokyo is suffering the double whammy of warmer temperatures and the “heat island effect”, Japan Meteorological Agency climate risk management officer Daisuke Sasano said on March 12. The heat island effect refers to how urban areas are warmer than rural regions as heat is absorbed and reflected by man-made structures.
On Kyushu island, the sakura flowered on March 21 in cosmopolitan Fukuoka and April 1 in rural Kagoshima in 2020, and March 18 and March 24 respectively in 2023. His daughter, however, sees it as a “symbol of graduation and farewells”. At 15, she is of the age when children graduate from junior high school in March and begin senior high school in April.