Sakura Spring 2021

hello :)

i am planning to visit Tokyo in spring 2021.

of course, it is a big goal to catch some cherry blossoms.

but i know it is quite hard to see them as i only have 9 days.

so i wonder which dates would be the best?

this year cherry blossom came quite early. on the other hand in 2019 peak was reached in april. this does not make it easy.

at the moment i have set the dates form march the 24th to april the 1st (2021).

do you think this is a good choice or would you go some days later? i am flexibel.

i hope someone may help me!

thank you soo much!!

Hello! I wish you lots of fun and good luck with the cherry blossoms. It depends on the year, but usually they show up around late March to early April. It also depends on which areas of Japan you will be going to as the warmer parts tend to bloom earlier than the cooler areas. If you came right around early April, you'd be able to see a bunch of Cherry blossoms. Have fun!

If you are truly flexible, then be prepared to travel outside of Tokyo. If the sakura aren't in full bloom in Tokyo when you are there, you could do a day trip to another part of the country where they are in full bloom.

It is incredibly easy to see cherry blossom across all of March and April in many places across Japan. With 600 varieties there is actually blossom all year depending on the tree and site. Even the core Shinjuku National Gardens have a designated SIX week blossom season in March/April. There will be no problem with finding blossom for the dates you mention.

This is Japan Meteorological Agency webpage showing the "full bloom" days in many of the cities in Japan.

https://www.data.jma.go.jp/sakura/data/sakura004_06.html

For your convenience, the days for Tokyo are:
4/6 4/6 3/22 3/30 3/29 3/31 4/2 3/24 3/27
(from 2011 to 2019, while the average of last 30 years is 4/3).

So if you will be staying in Tokyo you can catch full bloom 5
out of 9 cases. You will be too late 1 out of 9, too early 3 out of 9.

Note that Tokyo is one of the earliest bloom places in Japan.
Kochi and Fukuoka are a bit earlier, but they are very far from Tokyo.
If I were you I would choose 3-5 later days: if it is too late for Tokyo,
you can catch in later places such as Kanazawa, Mito, Kofu or even Kyoto etc.

Me and my family plan to visit Tokyo next year, I really hope the pandemic will have a vaccine by that time.

Footnote to Frog1954 - those forecasts are for just one type of cherry. As stated, there are hundreds and the Tokyo blossom season runs for weeks.
Around Tokyo (other than the plum blossom that comes out first) I can easily enjoy cherry blossom from early February until late April.

those forecasts are for just one type of cherry.

True. There are so many types of cherry so you can catch some of them. Maybe one type of cherry (Somei Yoshino) is too popular so JMA shows the date only for this cherry.

If you can choose any dates, I would choose early April. There is a 100% chance that many places in the nation will be in full bloom during that time. There has NEVER been a year without full blooms in early April. If you go in March, it will depend more on the weather. There is a higher chance that your options will be limited, especially in the first few days, and if the season is late, it will be very disappointing.

There are websites that track cherry blossom reports each day, so you can check those along with weather reports to choose a place that will have good weather and full blossoms. It will help to be flexible and to make yourself aware of good cherry blossom spots in a variety of regions in case the weather in your first choice(s) is bad or the blossoms are not where you want them to be.

@frog1954 - just as a note, I wasn't meaning to criticize your post. It is simply that it gets tiresome with some people (more on the TA forums) that say how narrow the blossom season is for XYZ place around Japan is when it simply isn't true.
Even for this year I noticed that while some people were going on about the blossom dates in "Tokyo" for somei yoshino blossom where I live (and the massive plantings of these trees where I am) the blossom dates were a week after other places in the city extending the viewing time for that one specific type across more than two weeks.
tl;dr - long blossom season, lots of places, hundreds of trees in full bloom, easy.