It’s a beautiful crisp and clear spring morning, although a little chilly to start. But it should warm up to be quite pleasant. Tomorrow should be warmer.
More of the trees are starting to pop, and you don’t have to hunt quite so hard to find flowers. Most of the trees still haven’t started blooming or have just a handful of flowers starting to come out. Without even looking at the tops of the trees you can tell which ones are blooming by the crowd of photographers under them.
As you can see from today’s photos, it’s pretty clear that tomorrow is not going to be the peak bloom date (although you can expect more blossoms with each day). Sometime Monday through Wednesday is looking likely, which will make most of the coming week prime viewing time. Warmer weather over the next several days will speed things up. How the trees will look the weekend of April 13/14 depends on how early in the week the peak bloom comes. You can see photos of how the trees looked 3 and 6 days after peak bloom last year here when warm weather and a storm hastened their exit.
There are a lot more people out today, and parking will be an issue today and tomorrow (and already was early this morning). There is a free shuttle service that runs around Hains Point that can come in very handy if you have to park a fair distance away around the loop. Metro is a better option if you can. There are also some Capital Bikeshare stations around the Tidal Basin if you’d prefer to ride–it’s a nice day for it.
And if you’re out there in the afternoon and evening, head over to the Southwest Waterfront Fireworks Festival, which runs from 1 to 9 with food and music and capped off by fireworks at 8:30. The full schedule is available here [PDF].
If you’d like to try to avoid the crowds, Dumbarton Oaks in Georgetown and the National Arboretum also have cherry blossoms. I don’t know whether their trees are blooming yet.
And a heads up if you plan on coming down Sunday morning. The Cherry Blossom 10-miler is being run then, which means road closures and other changes starting very early in the morning. A map of the road closures and times they go into effect is available here [PDF].
Want to Help Support DC's Cherry Trees?
If you'd like to help support the care and upkeep of the cherry trees around the Tidal Basin, the Trust for The National Mall has launched an Endow a Cherry Tree Campaign. Donations go to the official Cherry Tree Endowment, which will give the National Park Service additional resources to fund the care, maintenance, and possible replacement of the cherry trees. You can find more information here.
The Trust is dedicated to marshaling private support for maintaining and improving the history National Mall area. I'm not affiliated with the Trust--just an admirer of their efforts.
Corrie says
Thanks so much for doing this ~ Although I only live about 45 minutes from the Tidal Basin, I am not able to get down there periodically to check the status of the blooms. Between your website and the NPS bloom watch, I’ve been able to get a pretty good idea of when I need to go down there to capture the Cherry Blossoms in peak bloom. From a fellow photographer ~> I thoroughly appreciate the legwork and photographs that you take! Corrie @ travelingheartsphotography.blogspot.com