14 March 2013

Living in Snow Country

First of all, I'm living in Sapporo which is the largest city of Japan's northern island "Hokkaido". Also you should know that I'm not from Sapporo but my home town is Tokyo.

There are many differences between Tokyo and Sapporo. Sapporo is cold and snow so much in winter, but in Tokyo snow is really rare even in winter. I've been here for 1 and half years due to my work, and this winter season was my second time to spend in Sapporo. I mean this is my second time to spend whole winter season in such a snowy place.

The Second Season

 Yesterday, I heard the news that cherry blossoms started to bloom in Fukuoka. Yeah, it's middle of March and I believe the spring is coming. Also I believe we can sense spring. Yes, I sense spring because the temperature getting higher (but around 0 degrees in Celsius) and less snow days. But every weekend of March I experienced snowstorm... I'm not sure about this weekend, but according to weather forecast the weather of this weekend would be good, and I hope so. I don't need snow any more!!

This is my second time to spend whole winter season in Sapporo, and I felt that this season has much snow than previous season. My feeling is true, here's some data that there were much snow in this season than previous or average season.
Depth of Snow from City of Sapporo

Depth of snow (accum.) from city of Sapporo
In both graph, red line is this season's depth of snow. Green line means average season's depth of snow, and blue line means last season's depth of snow. As you can see this season has much snow in Sapporo. The depth of snow was 113 cm in this morning in Sapporo, this is 51 cm more than average season and 57 cm more than last season.

I hope next season would be less snow than this season... Or I might move to not snowy country... lol


As Season Change
These days the weather getting better and warmer. It's nice, but there also some problems in this place. There are still a mount of snow in many places. On the roof of apartments, road sides and etc... There are some unfortunate accidents in such days. The snow on the roof slip to ground and hit someone or something.

Here's photo which I found these days. The car unfortunately broken by slipped snow from the roof of apartment. I hope it will not happen to my car.



The apartment next to the car park is 4 stories, and I don't want to imagine the result if there was someone and snow hit someone...

Anyway, these kind of accident might be increased in season changes. We should care not to become whether assailant or victim. I hope spring will come to me soon.


Thanks
Tweet This
Posted by Masaya at 04:07
12 comments
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)