Predicting spring bloom is an art and a science

Short Wave

NPR

News, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Daily News, Nature, Science

4.7 • 6.5K Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2026

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Do you ever wish you could predict the future? The National Park Service in Washington D.C. does it every year when they forecast when the Capitol’s cherry blossoms will reach peak bloom. People travel from all over the world to enjoy the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival and to glimpse these fragile flowers before they are gone. On this month’s Nature Quest, we learn the ins and outs of cherry tree blossoms, how scientists make that big prediction every year — and why all this focus on blooms can help scientists better understand climate change.

This episode is part of Nature Quest, our monthly segment from listeners noticing a change in the world around them. To participate, send a voice memo to shortwave@npr.org with your name, location and your question about a change you're seeing in nature!

Want to learn more about nature’s calendar? Check out our first Nature Quest episode on whether flowers are blooming early.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, shortwavers, Emily Kwong here with a quick favor to ask,
0:02.6	can you send us a voice memo to shortwave at npr.org with your questions about science
0:08.6	and specifically about your local environment. That would help a lot.
0:11.5	Include your name, where your home is, and your question,
0:14.5	and we might consider it for a future episode. Thank you so much.
0:18.2	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:23.5	Hey everyone, Emily Kwong here with someone very special to our team, Shortwave intern Arru Nair.
0:30.1	Hey, Emily.
0:31.0	What's up?
0:32.0	You and I are at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C.
0:35.6	And it's your first time living in the district. How's it going?
0:39.6	It is. I'm originally from Wyoming, and I moved to D.C. last fall. My favorite part has
0:45.4	definitely been the public transit. It's very magical to me. It's a joy to ride. Yeah. But there is
0:51.0	one particular event that happens every spring. That's a huge deal.
0:55.7	Emily, have you heard of the Cherry Blossom Festival?
0:57.9	You can't escape it.
0:59.3	This time of year, the cherry blossom marketing is everywhere.
1:02.7	But originally, these blossoms came from trees gifted by Japan in 1912.
1:07.5	And now they turn the city into this, like, soft pink wonderland.
1:11.2	Yeah, there's so many trees in bloom right now.
1:13.7	Yeah.
1:13.8	So we have 20,000 trees parkwide, but of the cherry trees in particular, we have right around 3,700.
	...

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