Everyone's talking about the unpredictable weather, and this year they're doing something about it. Crowd-sourced cherry blossom reports are taking the place of the official announcements that were put out by the Japan Meteorological Agency every year since 1955. This year, the agency declared the beginning of the season by measuring a tree at Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine and ended the official predictions. This opened up the blossom-predicting business to private weather companies and Web sites.
Several companies are competing to replace the official JMA blossom report, giving office-bound nature lovers plenty of options for desktop tree-tracking. Weathermap Sakura takes a scientific approach, with charts, graphs and indoorsy-looking columnists predicting peak bloom times. Weathermap's sakura Twitter feed sends status reports on viewing spots, comparing this year's full-bloom date to the historical average and last year's date.
Not to be confused with competing private forecaster, Weathernews, which also has an interactive map. Its main selling point is photos and "My Sakura" reports from some 20,000 users keeping tabs on the state of the blooms. The site's "SakuraSimulator" lets armchair forecasters slide a time bar to track the daily cherry blossom front as it spreads across a satellite image of Japan. (Those who really like to plan ahead can have a go at the 100-year simulation.)