The Newark cherry blossoms typically bloom in the spring in the city’s Branch Brook Park. But this year the trees have bloomed nearly five months earlier than anticipated.

The New Jersey state climatologist says that a similar unexpected bloom also happened around the same time in Japan. Dr. David Robinson says that the weather in the state this year had a direct impact on the bloom.

“We had an exceedingly warm summer, and that summer warmth continued throughout September, and into the first two weeks of October, before it abruptly changed,” Robinson says. “By then the situation had begun to unfold for this blossoming.”

The warmer, wet weather over the past few months also caused a delay in the changing of the fall foliage.