Mapping cherry blossom

Today I did a simple animated map to view how cherry blossom is sweeping through Japan.

On the map, I used color gradient from light pink to dark pink to show the progression from flowering to full bloom, based on the data from Japan Meteorological Corporation’s latest forecast at prefecture level.

Understandably even within a city blossoming timings can differ by district. But that shouldn’t prevent us to show the general north-ward pink wave of cherry blossom from Kochi in the South to Hokkaido in the North, as well as its peak activity end Mar-early Apr.

According to Japan-Guide, It takes about 1 week from the opening of the first blossom to full bloom, then another week for flowers to fall. Without data on when cherry blossom finishes, I simulated the decay by reverse mirroring the flowering-to-bloom duration, which seeks to offer an explanatory estimates.

A summarization is added at the bottom to show number of locations with blossoming activities.

This is #day81 of my #100dayprojects on data science and visual storytelling. The code can be found on my github. If you like it, please share it. Suggestions of new topics and feedbacks are always welcomed.