Glitch-hit Japan blossom arrives

The cherry blossom is keenly awaited in Japan

Japan's short but much-anticipated cherry blossom season has officially begun, weather officials announced.

They were forced to make a televised apology last week after admitting they had given an inaccurate forecast because of a computer glitch.

But Tuesday's blossoming still comes eight days earlier than the average, a meteorological agency spokesman said.

The announcement came after blossom was spotted on a closely monitored tree in central Tokyo.

"At this afternoon's observation, we observed six flowers blooming. So, we claim cherry blossom bloomed today," the agency's chief of technology, Akira Honda, said.

This year's blooming of the cherry blossom in the Japanese capital is the third earliest since the agency began collecting records in 1953.

Closely-watched task

The short period when the delicate pink flowers bloom is keenly awaited and its forecast is very serious business in Japan, the BBC's Chris Hogg in Tokyo says.

The flowers are said to signify that life is short and should be enjoyed, so many towns and firms plan festivals and parties to mark the season. Travel agents plan tours around the blossoming.

Predicting the cherry blossoms is one of the meteorological agency's most closely-watched tasks, our correspondent adds.

But red-faced officials were last week forced to admit that this year they had got it badly wrong after predicting it would start in Tokyo on 18 March. They later revised it to Wednesday.

They blamed a bug in a computer programme used to analyse weather data for the inaccurate forecast.