Very likely it was the extreme winter cold. If your trees are leafing out well, at least that's a plus. I've missed two years crop running and have ~80 half dead trees. It only fell to ~15 in winter. Mine took a hit at 23F in April.

Yes, leafing out quite well.

What perplexes me is the fact that fruit buds start to form the summer before. It's not that there are any dead buds, it's that they just aren't there. Were the trees clairvoyant?

I want to understand how this process works.

As for fruit this year, I guess I'll have pears. Maybe a few dozen apples. Doesn't look like stone fruit except maybe Shiro plums.

Just looking at all the trees this afternoon. McIntosh/Cortland booth look fine (they were pruned severely last summer so i didn't expect a ton of flowers). The Seckel, Harrow Sweet pear look fine (lots of flowers). The sour cherries look fine. Evans cherry is loaded with flowers. The Hunza apricot has 1! flower...Puget Gold (not that I care for it, but it has been grafted over so i keep it) has maybe 20 flowers (these are near bloom). No peaches to speak of (in ground). I have some Satsuma that made it (at least the flowers are swelling...who knows if they set fruit). Alderman (hybrid plum) has lots of flowers.

heck, my trees are hardly pushing buds yet. we still had twenty below a month ago. this time last year the flowers were freezing off. been a goofy year for sure.

My sweet cherries have no flowers. Lapins, Black Gold, Kristin. They are leafed out now. Even the Seckel pear is weak on blooms (last year it had a huge crop)...

My sweet cherries are north facing, but in the shadow of the house all winter (no sun)...

My cherries don't have many flowers at all. I thought I was going to get my first big crop. My peaches didn't flower either. I have one Asian plum that went nuts with bloom, and its mate is trying to just live with only a couple leaves. I have a 20th century pear that went crazy with flowers on every tip, but the other pear only has three tips that budded flowers. I tipped a foot or more off my cherries so next year I hopefully get a bumper crop. My apple trees are full of flowers.

I also want to say where the flower buds on the peach most are dead but the ones that lived didn't send flowers out they sent all leaves. My cherry fruity buds don't want to open and if the few that did are just leaves too. It's weird they grew leaves!

My almond tree (All-In-One) didn't have a single bloom this year after blooming nicely for a small tree last year. It's not very mature, but it grew so well last year and looks even better now. I hope it was just the cold. If I'm doing something wrong for it to not set buds, I want to know for this year, yeah :)

I didn't have a single bloom on any of my peaches, but I will have apples, pears, and some plums. My cherries are loaded. Blackberries are toast as well--esp Triple Crown. I took the opportunity and ripped out 75 feet of them to try Osage. They have been extremely disappointing. They set a massive crop but ripen so late they're damaged or destroyed by heat even though they're partly shaded. I still have over 100 feet of them. It is an unbelievable year for currants, blueberries, and gooseberries though. My Southern blues made it through just fine with little to no dieback. Concord grapes came through fine, but nearly all seedless grapes were killed back to the root. Jupiters, I fear, may be completely dead.

My Sekel pear is blooming abundantly. And the Stanley plum.

Apples - I may get one or two dozen, if the bees are diligent.

Nothing else.

It's so weird. I went around the neighborhood this weekend looking at fruit trees. One 2nd-seaon Honeycrisp is loaded with bloom. So it didn't affect all the apples here, just most of them. Like mine.

Another neighbor's peaches look just about dead.

Nature is mercurial.

Well I was thinking that I'd know by now if there were flowers on some of my fruit trees. But after several warm sunny weeks, we've had almost a week of cold, clouds and snow (18" or so on the ground so far). Supposed to get down to mid to high teens F tonight.

Hope the flower buds will be well protected. Should be OK on the still to break trees, but have a few apples with 1/4" green tip showing...