Cherry blossom lingo: a shower of cherry blossom petals

I have been introducing some of my favorite cherry blossom related Japanese phrases today. This is the third post in the series. And once again, it relates to one of the sights I love to see during cherry blossom season: a shower of cherry blossom petals. This is a phenomenon that you can see toward the end of the cherry blossom season.

A shower of cherry blossom petals

A shower of cherry blossom petals happens when the trees begin to shed their petals. It looks like snow falling to the ground. If you catch it on a windy day, you can see the most beautiful sight of sakura petals dancing around in the wind. It is hard to capture in a photo, so I have shared a reel from my Instagram account in this post. To be perfectly honest, I created the reel for the purpose of this City-cost post! So you can see how magical falling sakura petals look.

The term for this stunning sight in Japanese is "hanafubuki" 花吹雪. Hana means flower and fubuki means snow storm. "Hanafubuki" can be translated as a flower storm, but, as far as I am aware, it is most commonly used to describe falling cherry blossom petals. When the petals land on the ground they create a carpet known as a "hanamushiro" or "sakura no jutan".

Have you seen any sakura snowstorms aka cherry blossom petals falling and / or dancing in the wind this season?