We’ve had a long, long winter here in Hachimantai City. Usually, I can expect to see cherry blossoms bloom around the middle of the month, however this year it is April 27 and they still haven’t bloomed. Daffodils are other flowers are also very late with their arrival. In fact, we’ve had snowfall as late as last week. Here are some photo of the late April snow:
Even the poor flowers got buried. I was worried they wouldn’t make it under the heavy snow, but most of them seemed to have pulled through.
Yesterday, it seemed that spring was finally making an appearance. The grass started to glow green and warm winds blew over Mt.Iwate. That is usually a good sign that spring is on the way.
To put this all in perspective: This is the first time since I came to Japan that I’ve seen snow this late in April. In fact, if you browse my flickr archives, you’ll see with the cherry blossom photos of previous years that spring is usually quite a bit more punctual. I even spoke to a local farmer about it and he says he has never seen anything like it before. Is this a sign of rampant climate change, or just a random act of nature. I have a sad feeling it’s the former.
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