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D.C’s cherry blossoms just hit their earliest peak bloom in 20 years. Here’s why scientists say it’ll keep happening earlier.

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D.C’s cherry blossoms just hit their earliest peak bloom in 20 years. Here’s why scientists say it’ll keep happening earlier.


The iconic pink and white blossoms that transform Washington, D.C. at the beginning of spring have officially hit their earliest peak bloom recorded in at least 20 years. It’s one of the earliest days it’s happened in the area on record – and experts say it will likely keep shifting earlier. 

Peak bloom occurs when 70% of the Yoshino cherry blossoms planted around D.C. open up. According to the National Park Service, this usually happens between the last week of March and the first week of April. From 2004 to 2023, the annual peak mostly occurred between March 25 and April 10, with a few exceptions where it happened as early as March 20. 

The service predicted on its website that peak bloom would occur this year between March 23 and March 26, but in an update on Sunday, the service’s National Mall and Memorial Parks posted an update on social media.

“PEAK BLOOM! PEAK BLOOM! PEAK BLOOM! Did we say PEAK BLOOM?!” the agency said. “The blossoms are opening & putting on a splendid spring spectacle.” 

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The agency confirmed peak bloom arrived on March 17 on its website on Monday. But what exactly makes them open up earlier? Scientists and National Park officials say it all has to do with the weather. 

“Peak bloom varies annually depending on weather conditions,” the service says, adding that the typical bloom period also depends on weather conditions. “…Cool, calm weather can extend the length of the bloom, and a rainy, windy day can bring an abrupt end to the ephemeral blossoms. A late frost can prevent the trees from blooming at all.” 

D.C.’s predicted peak blossom season is expected to come just days after scientists with the Japan Meteorological Agency said cherry blossoms have been blooming earlier over time due to rising global temperatures. 

Daisuke Sasano, a climate risk management officer at the JMA’s Office of Climate Change, said in a briefing last week that overall, global temperatures have been increasing. Scientists have confirmed that 2023 was the hottest year on record and 2024 has already seen record-breaking heat

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“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Climate change is already affecting every inhabited region across the globe, with human influence contributing to many observed changes in weather and climate extremes,” his presentation said, citing the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Projected changes in extremes are larger in frequency and intensity with every additional increment of global warming.”

Studying a sample cherry blossom tree — called sakura in Japanese — in Tokyo, Sasano said scientists found that the average start date for cherry blossoms to bloom in Japan has gotten earlier, moving up at a rate of roughly 1.2 days every decade. That rate has a “high” correlation with the average temperature, he said. And it’s not just Tokyo — several major Japanese cities have seen earlier blooms over the past 30 years, including Osaka, Hiroshima and Sendai. 

The earliest peak recorded in D.C. was March 15, 1990, according to the National Park Service, which added that this year marks the earliest peak in at least two decades. It comes as the D.C. saw above-average temperatures in both January and March. On Feb. 26, Weather Underground recorded a max temperature of 66 degrees Fahrenheit at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport – nearly 16 degrees above average. 

Global temperatures are only expected to continue to rise, furthering weather extremes – and impacting cherry blossoms. Even if greenhouse gas emissions – a primary driver of global warming – drastically decrease worldwide today, the emissions already put into the atmosphere will continue to have an impact for decades to come. 

Scientists with non-profit group Climate Central have also said climate change is having an impact on blossoms. In 2018, the organization said that from 1931 to 1960, cherry blossoms in D.C. were blooming on average around April 6. From 1981 to 2010, however, the average was April 1. They also predict that in the future, blooms could happen as early as the first week of March. 

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Last year’s cherry blossoms stayed on trees for a little more than a week. But how long this year’s bloom remains is still a question. The National Weather Service is expecting a cold front into the Northeast U.S. at the beginning of the week that could bring some snow and wind gusts of up to 30 mph across the region, and while cool and calm can extend the life of the blossoms, rain and wind can bring their end.  





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Washington, D.C

Storm Team4 Forecast: A chilly, gusty Sunday before a cool start to the week

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Storm Team4 Forecast: A chilly, gusty Sunday before a cool start to the week


4 things to know about the weather:

  1. Chances of rain in the morning
  2. Gusty Sunday
  3. Chilly Monday
  4. Temps will rise again through the work week

Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.

After a nice and warm Saturday, changes arrive for part two of the weekend.

The first half of your Sunday will have a chance for showers. Winds will pick up with our next system and are expected to gust to about 20-30 mph. Cooler air will settle in, and lows Sunday night fall into the 40s.

Highs temps Monday will reach only into the mid to upper 50s.

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However, temperatures will rise through the week, so you won’t need your jackets every day.

QuickCast

SUNDAY:
Showers, then partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 30 mph
HIGH: Lower 60s

MONDAY:
Partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 25 mph
HIGH: Upper 50s

Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.



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‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington

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‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington


The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest.

In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world. But then came the Iran war.

“Some countries are in panic,” said the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the finance ministers and central bank bosses in town for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings. “The sooner it [the Iran war] ends, the better for everybody.”

Such gatherings are not typically used to fight geopolitical battles. “You don’t get people shouting at one another at these things,” one senior figure remarked. But, as a record-breaking April heatwave swept the US capital, no one could ignore the mounting damage from the Iran war.

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Those familiar with the mood over breakfast at a meeting of the G20’s representatives on Thursday, which included Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell – said the atmosphere in the room was sombre amid an open exchange of serious views.

“It is such a twilight-zone meeting,” said Mohamed El-Erian, a former IMF deputy managing director who is now chief economic adviser at the Allianz insurance group. “There are several shadows hanging over it: one is the shadow that comes from concern about the global economy as a whole.

“The second is that some countries are going to be particularly hard hit, and it’s mostly countries that very few people are talking about. But the third concern is the adding of insult to injury: the fact that the US, which started a war of choice, is going to be hit, but by a lot less than elsewhere in relative terms.”

Before Thursday’s breakfast, Rachel Reeves had started her day with an early-morning jog. Joined by her counterparts from Spain, Australia and New Zealand for a run down the iconic National Mall, she posted an Instagram selfie with a not-so-subtle dig: “Friends that run together – work together.”

A day earlier, the chancellor had told a CNBC conference that she thought “friends are allowed to disagree on things” as she criticised Trump’s Iran war as a “mistake” and a “folly” that had not made the world safer.

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Rachel Reeves posted this image on Instagram from Washington DC on Thursday with the message: ‘Friends that run together – work together.’ Photograph: Rachel Reeves/Instagram

Speaking at a venue just steps away from the White House, before a one-on-one meeting with Bessent, she said this “fair message” was needed because UK families and businesses were feeling the pain from higher energy prices triggered by the conflict.

Those close to Reeves insist her meeting remained cordial. Britain and the US have significant shared interests in AI, financial services and trade. The chancellor also said the UK government had little time for the Iranian regime.

But with the IMF having warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could risk a global recession – in which Britain would be the biggest G7 casualty – it was clear Reeves had travelled to Washington ready to pick a fight.

“I’m struck by how vocal she has been and the words she used,” said one global financier. “We know the disagreement between Bessent and [European Central Bank president] Christine Lagarde earlier in the year. But that was in private.”

At a cocktail party held at the British ambassador’s residence for hundreds of diplomats and financiers – including the Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, and dozens of senior figures – this transatlantic tension, weeks before King Charles’s US state visit, was a major topic of conversation.

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The other, in the balmy residence gardens, was one of its former occupants, Peter Mandelson, as revelations about the former ambassador’s appointment threatened to further rock the UK government.

Before the war, the agenda for the IMF had been about global cooperation; the adoption of AI, jobs and work to eradicate poverty. Each of those tasks had now been complicated, but not least the task of countries working together.

For many at the meetings, the focus was on forging closer global cooperation without the world’s pre-eminent superpower.

“Everybody is talking about how you hedge against American decisions,” said David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee. “You can’t do without them, because they’re 25% of the global economy. But, in a lot of fora, they’ve pulled out.

“So everyone has to think, how does one structure international cooperation? The old west is not coming back. And so everyone has to figure out how to position themselves for that world.”

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For those gathering in Washington, there was irony in the fact that they were meeting in the halls of institutions founded, under US leadership, to promote global cooperation after the second world war. The whole idea of the Bretton Woods institutions was to avoid the dire economic conditions and warfare of the 1930s and 1940s. Yet this year’s meeting was taking place amid these intertwining problems.

In their conversations about the best economic policy response to the shock of conflict, the economists also knew the real power to make a difference lay two blocks across town from the IMF and the World Bank – behind the security cordons and construction equipment blocking the White House from public view. “It is not clear they can do anything about it,” said El-Erian.

Still, with a booming economy driven by AI – including Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, the topic of much conversation – most countries cannot afford to completely break off US ties.

“People want to find ways to insulate themselves from the mess. But, on the other hand, they admire the US private sector,” El-Erian said. “The best way I’ve heard it put, is: they want to go long the private sector and short the mess. But it’s almost impossible to do.”





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Rosselli opens in DC, serving classic Italian flavors from chef Carlos

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Rosselli opens in DC, serving classic Italian flavors from chef Carlos


Rosselli is the newest restaurant to open in DC.

Bringing in classic Italian flavors, Chef Carlos explained how he hopes his food is a unique addition to the Italian food scene in the DMV.

Chef also demoed a signature dish with Brian and Megan.

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You can learn more and book your table here.



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