The cherry trees here run a few days behind the rest of the city, and the city says so itself. Senshu Park occupies the site of Kubota Castle, on high ground above central Akita, and the municipal account states that flowering lags the meteorological agency's announcement by one to two days around the Ninomaru and four to five around the Honmaru. Height is the whole explanation.

There are about six hundred and thirty trees, roughly eight in ten of them Somei-yoshino, planted along the old lines of the castle from the foot of the hill to the top of it.

The city also records that full bloom lasts about three days. Three days is not long. It is short enough that arriving on the wrong side of it means seeing something quite different from what you came for, and short enough that the lag between the lower and upper parts of the hill actually matters.

Which turns the climb into a way of moving backwards through the season. The entrance can be dropping petals while the top is still at its fullest, so you walk uphill and the flowering gets earlier as you go. It is a small effect, four or five days at most, and you would never notice it if the city had not written it down.