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Warm Winter Has Cherry Trees Blooming Way Ahead Of Schedule

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Philadelphia's cherry trees are starting to bloom, one month before the city's big Cherry Blossom Festival.

Philadelphia has 2,000 cherry trees which put on a gorgeous display all over town, according to Kim Andrews, Executive Director of the Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia. The 20th annual Cherry Blossom Festival starts April 1 and already some of the trees are blooming....way ahead of schedule, thanks to the warm winter.

"The cherry trees are blooming earlier than I've ever seen them in my seven years here, but we have a wide variety of different types of trees, so the early blooming ones are coming out now," Andrews said. "If we have some cold weather it will slow down the rest of the trees, which we expect to happen, so we should have cherry trees for the Cherry Blossom Festival.

That festival runs from April 1-9.

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