Weather in early April

Hi everybody,

I will visit Japan for the first time starting next Tuesday, I visit Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka and Hiroshima. I've been preparing for this trip for three years now, and I was very happy to see that I will hit the peak of the cherry blossom period. However, I'm very worried because according to the weather forecast, it will be raining during the first week. I know that the rainy season starts a week or two after the cherry blossoming, so for me it seems that it's still too early for this much rain. Will the forecasted rain screw the hanami?

Hello.
Japan weather is a little different between Tokyo and Osaka and Kyoto and Nara.
A weather forecast in spring time is often wrong.
I believe that you will get the chance to see beautiful cherry blossoms in Japan.
Good luck!

I was in Kyoto/Osaka in the first 10 days of April last year and the weather was fine. No rain.

The officials has announced that sakura was in full bloom (more than 80%) in Tokyo. Today and tomorrow (30-31 Mar) would be expected for the best days for hanami this year, because of relatively warm temperatures these days and coming cloudy and rainy days you has been worried.
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=toky...

For the other parts of Japan, the following Japanese site would be useful. It has much information, though some shows delays. Note some sakura starts to bloom earlier or later than the standard sakura, someiyoshino.
http://weathernews.jp/sakura/#//ddm=simu_
http://weathernews.jp/sakura/#//ddm=simu_/c=50

http://www.wunderground.com/q/zmw:00000.1.47671?MR=1

Yes, my friends in Tokyo keep sending me sakura photos, and rain is forecast for Easter Sunday for our hanami picnic.

too bad - there will be the sakura blizzard instead :)

Thanks for the replies! Well, weathee cannot be changed, so if it's going to rain, then it's going to rain, I still plan to have fun in Japan :) I'm happy to catch the beautiful weather on 31st March :)

I m worried about the similar thing. I will be in Tokyo and Kyoto between 4-13 April but all days are rainy. There is no even one sunny day. I was expecting a warmer,sunny Japan. I hope weather.com is not correct for that period.

Appearently, weather forecast is constantly changing - of course :) I have a built-in AccuWeather app in my phone, and it seems to be a pessimistic app - recently, it keeps telling me that it is going to rain, but in the end no rain comes. Its forecast for Tokyo was like this, according to last week:

31/03 - Partly sunny with showers
01/04 - Mostly cloudy with showers
02/04 - Showers
03/04 - Rain
04/04 - Rain
05/04 - Showers

Compared to this, it is much better according to the latest weather forecast:
31/03 - Sunny
01/04 - Showers
02/04 - Sunny
03/04 - Windy
04/04 - Cloudy
05/04 - Showers

Kyoto also changed on some earlier days from Showers and Rain to Partly Sunny or Mostly Cloudy.

So my advice is: don't take the weather forecast too seriously, not even in Japan, it just messes up your mood for the trip. It might be accurate for the next two days (more or less), but everything beyond that horizon is just a guessing game. As it is just the beginning of April, tsuyu is still far away, and Kanto/Kansai is mostly dry in April. It is highly unlikely that rain will constantly fall. So cheer up :)

PS.: I'm at the airport waiting for changing my flight, I'm super excited to finally see Japan :)