We're doomed.
We've just entered what is normally the coldest part of winter. (January and February) We'll see how long the warm weather holds.
It's doubtful that they are typical spring-blooming cherries like you'd find in DC blooming, since they REQUIRE a certain number of hours of winter chilling and dormancy before blooming.
More likely they're Prunus subhirtella, which often blooms during winter mild spells anywhere from November to March.
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/factsheets/trees-new/prunus_subhirtella_autum.html
Algore in town?
Methinks the folks in Colorado, Kansas, et al. would love some global warming right about now.
With heating fuel at 2.32 a gallon, I am hoping for continued globial warming.
A general question: If leaves begin blooming, and then the winter sets in, will those particular branches bloom yet again in SPring, or not because the leaves had already sprouted?
I would caution about attributing this to either El Nino or supposed AGW. This El Nino ended up being a dud and is already dissipating. Significantly, out West, we never experienced any El Nino characteristics (usually we experience them first and strongest). If anything, we are experiencing a crypto La Nina (cold, low elevation snow, etc).
Of further note, the PDO really wants to flip to negative phase (ala 1940 - 1976). What is being experienced back east (and in Western Europe) may be a sort of "calm before the storm" effect, a precursor to a very cold and wet couple of decades globally. We'll see.