Weather Words: Early Flowering

Early flowering occurs when a vascular plant, or a plant that transports water and nutrients in vessels or tubes called xylem, blooms earlier than other vascular plants in a region.

Why Do Cherry Blossoms Experience Early Flowering?

Some vascular plants, such as cherry blossoms, flower earlier than other deciduous trees, such as oak and maple. This is because cherry blossoms have a lower heat threshold to begin blooming compared to other deciduous trees.

As a result, cherry blossoms can begin blooming even during winter if there is an unusually long stretch of warm weather following a period of cold. For example, due to the unusually warm late December weather in the Southern U.S. after a chilly November, some cherry blossom trees began blooming, even before Christmas!

While cherry blossoms typically flower earlier than other plants, they do not typically bloom in the South until late February.

Hayden Marshall is a meteorologist intern and First-Year-Master’s Student at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has been following weather content over the past three years as a Storm Spotter and weather enthusiast. He can be found on Instagram and Linkedin.