Go Native 70 Posted February 10, 2011 Share Posted February 10, 2011 Regardless of how big our walls of snow get as far as I have been able to find there is no other town in the world under 200m above sea level that even comes close to the average annual snowfall of around 12m that's recorded in Kutchan. There may well be some other towns here in Hokkaido or on Honshu that do get more but they don't have climate records to prove it. And as far as cities with a population over 1 million goes I don't believe any other city in the world comes close to the annual snowfall of Sapporo. When we're talking snow to low levels near sea level it's hard to beat Hokkaido. Link to post Share on other sites
sanjo 2 Posted February 10, 2011 Share Posted February 10, 2011 Quote: there is no other town in the world under 200m above sea level irrelevant Link to post Share on other sites
Go Native 70 Posted February 10, 2011 Share Posted February 10, 2011 Hardly irrelevant. It's easy to find many places in the world that get huge amounts of annual snowfall. Some of the mountains in the panhandle region of Alaska get snowfall amounts that would make Japanese totals pale in comparison. Same with parts of the western slopes of the Andes in Patagonia and parts of the NZ Alps on their western faces. What's interesting to me is low level snow that is not overly influenced by the orographic effects of mountains. Nowhere else in the world has quite as pronounced 'sea effect' snowfall as Japan. Mountains are not required to produce large amounts of winter precipitation. It's virtually unique in the world in that sense which is what makes it interesting. I'm sure there's quite a few towns in Niigata that are low level and also receive large amounts of snow. I just can't find any long term stats to find out what they average. Link to post Share on other sites
sanjo 2 Posted February 10, 2011 Share Posted February 10, 2011 Regarding the argument of 'which town has the most snow piled up', it is totally irrelevant. Link to post Share on other sites
Chriselle 158 Posted February 10, 2011 Share Posted February 10, 2011 I'm going to try and find some old pics of Horonuka..(just inland of Rumoi, Hokkaido). Pretty impressive actually. Link to post Share on other sites
Jynxx 4 Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Originally Posted By: Go Native Hardly irrelevant. It's easy to find many places in the world that get huge amounts of annual snowfall. Some of the mountains in the panhandle region of Alaska get snowfall amounts that would make Japanese totals pale in comparison. Same with parts of the western slopes of the Andes in Patagonia and parts of the NZ Alps on their western faces. What's interesting to me is low level snow that is not overly influenced by the orographic effects of mountains. Nowhere else in the world has quite as pronounced 'sea effect' snowfall as Japan. Mountains are not required to produce large amounts of winter precipitation. It's virtually unique in the world in that sense which is what makes it interesting. I'm sure there's quite a few towns in Niigata that are low level and also receive large amounts of snow. I just can't find any long term stats to find out what they average. Actually, This is so true. Thanks GN for pointing that out The question is: There are mountains but the mountains are not that big (high altitude) to introduce adiabatic for pricipitation. Then what other factor is making it so? Higher geo-thermal activity? Link to post Share on other sites
Go Native 70 Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Originally Posted By: sanjo Regarding the argument of 'which town has the most snow piled up', it is totally irrelevant. Yeah but the thread is about the towns/villages that get the most snow, not how high they can pile that snow at the side of roads. If you can find stats for a town in Japan that averages more than 12m per season I'd love to see them! Link to post Share on other sites
sanjo 2 Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Original post Originally Posted By: MummySkier I'm interested after seeing some of the photos of walls of snow on the side of the roads, where would you say gets the most/biggest like that? At village level rather than on the mountains. It would seem not. Link to post Share on other sites
Go Native 70 Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Well if you go by the topic thread heading... Link to post Share on other sites
sanjo 2 Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Probably best to read a thread rather than just the heading hey. Link to post Share on other sites
sanjo 2 Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 But seriously, I'd love to know how much snow these Niigata areas get. Link to post Share on other sites
SnowJapan Admin SnowJapan#Andrew 6 Posted February 11, 2011 SnowJapan Admin Share Posted February 11, 2011 Originally Posted By: Go Native If you can find stats for a town in Japan that averages more than 12m per season I'd love to see them! Would be very interesting. I'm going to be going to Niigata kencho on Monday and will try to find out any available info like that if it exists for Niigata. Link to post Share on other sites
Go Native 70 Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Originally Posted By: sanjo But seriously, I'd love to know how much snow these Niigata areas get. So would I. JMA only have long term stats for coastal towns in Niigata as far as I can tell. I certainly don't claim that this area is the snowiest in Japan but it is the only town that does have reliable climate stats going back around 60 years that shows an average annual snowfall above the 10m mark. At least on the JMA site. It's a pity there's not more stats from other sites but the Japanese don't appear to be all that interested in promoting the incredible amounts of snow they receive!! Link to post Share on other sites
SnowJapan Admin SnowJapan#Andrew 6 Posted February 11, 2011 SnowJapan Admin Share Posted February 11, 2011 Local friend just sent me this 1982: 1837.1cm in Yuzawa 1987: 2092.8cm in Tokamachi 2006: 1597cm in Yuzawa Link to post Share on other sites
Go Native 70 Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Originally Posted By: sanjo Probably best to read a thread rather than just the heading hey. Since mine was the 2nd reply in the thread I can assure you I have read it. Personally though how high they create walls of snow from clearing roads doesn't overly interest me but snowfall stats (from anywhere in the world) really, really do! Link to post Share on other sites
Go Native 70 Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Remember there was that Forbes list that had Niseko as the 2nd snowiest resort in the world? Not only was it just a made up figure for the resort as there is no meteorological station in Niseko that records reliable snowfall data (this site is about as good as it gets) but hardly any other Japanese resorts made it on the list. If we had any sort of accurate data from other resorts in Japan (having accurate data obviously doesn't apply to Niseko! ) then that Forbes list would have been dominated by Japanese resorts I reckon and Niseko would not have been anywhere near #2. Link to post Share on other sites
Go Native 70 Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Originally Posted By: SJ-Andrew Local friend just sent me this 1982: 1837.1cm in Yuzawa 1987: 2092.8cm in Tokamachi 2006: 1597cm in Yuzawa Are they highest ever recorded? I assume so as they are for specific years. Be good to get our hands on the long term stats though to get averages. Kutchan's highest ever recorded annual snowfall was in the 69/70 season when they received 2019cm. I love that they've actually recorded it to mm accuracy! Like rounding up to 2093cm for Tokamachi would be cheating. 2mm makes such a difference in a 20m snowfall year Link to post Share on other sites
SnowJapan Admin SnowJapan#Andrew 6 Posted February 11, 2011 SnowJapan Admin Share Posted February 11, 2011 Yuzawa, Niigata Columns are: Year / Snowfall (cm) / Most in a day (cm) / Highest at one time (cm) 1983 -- 1203 -- 66 -- 206 1984 -- 2063 -- 64 -- 352 1985 -- 1394 -- 77 -- 219 1986 -- 1993 -- 62 -- 245 1987 -- 1211 -- 70 -- 199 1988 -- 1184 -- 64 -- 209 1989 -- 789 -- 44 -- 99 1990 -- 798 -- 57 -- 185 1991 -- 1024 -- 66 -- 206 1992 -- 1014 -- 62 -- 166 1993 -- 1238 -- 76 -- 190 1994 -- 1170 -- 59 -- 195 1995 -- 1309 -- 64 -- 227 1996 -- 1568 -- 68 -- 282 1997 -- 958 -- 59 -- 200 1998 -- 870 -- 57 -- 140 1999 -- 1121 -- 57 -- 225 2000 -- 1255 -- 78 -- 234 2001 -- 1378 -- 76 -- 236 2002 -- 1130 -- 40 -- 187 2003 -- 1063 -- 79 -- 181 2004 -- 969 -- 53 -- 154 2005 -- 1384 -- 63 -- 329 2006 -- 1597 -- 93 -- 358 2007 -- 614 -- 50 -- 74 2008 -- 1212 -- 58 -- 228 2009 -- 820 -- 53 -- 121 That seems to make an average of 1197.37cm! Link to post Share on other sites
Mike Pow 52 Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 All I know is that I worked in Rusutsu for 10 days in January 2009, and when I returned to Hirafu my 1 storey cabin with a bedroom in the A-frame roof space had disappeared. All you could see was the very apex of the roof. Somewhere between 3-4 metres of accumulated snow depth. Took me bloody ages to dig my way back in. Link to post Share on other sites
Mike Pow 52 Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Originally Posted By: SJ-Andrew Yuzawa, Niigata 1983-2009 Mean = 11.97 m SD = 3.35 m Min = 6.14 m Max = 20.63 m A very impressive mean. Massive range though. But still that worst winter of 6.14m puts it ahead of hundreds (possibly thousands) of ski areas around the world. Link to post Share on other sites
SnowJapan Admin SnowJapan#Andrew 6 Posted February 11, 2011 SnowJapan Admin Share Posted February 11, 2011 Kutchan, Hokkaido 1983 -- 1242 -- 184 1984 -- 1446 -- 223 1985 -- 1009 -- 178 1986 -- 1518 -- 249 1987 -- 1272 -- 212 1988 -- 1556 -- 248 1989 -- 792 -- 126 1990 -- 1160 -- 229 1991 -- 1031 -- 173 1992 -- 1098 -- 159 1993 -- 1035 -- 179 1994 -- 1311 -- 195 1995 -- 1159 -- 170 1996 -- 1397 -- 227 1997 -- 1118 -- 188 1998 -- 1023 -- 150 1999 -- 1484 -- 210 2000 -- 1124 -- 176 2001 -- 1217 -- 190 2002 -- 1051 -- 127 2003 -- 1328 -- 186 2004 -- 947 -- 151 2005 -- 1410 -- 239 2006 -- 1203 -- 216 2007 -- 839 -- 155 2008 -- 887 -- 206 2009 -- 974 -- 165 That seems to make an average of 1171.519cm Link to post Share on other sites
Go Native 70 Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 Kutchan data goes back to the 53/54 season. If you add those in it increases, especially when you have the 69/70 year which was massive. Regardless at less than 200m above sea level it is an incredibly impressive figure. As I say I've done quite a bit of searching at snowfall stats worldwide and I can't find anywhere else so low that get so much snow. Link to post Share on other sites
SnowJapan Admin SnowJapan#Andrew 6 Posted February 11, 2011 SnowJapan Admin Share Posted February 11, 2011 I would imagine that Yuzawa had some massive years too before then. I have seen photos of scenes that I have never seen anything like in the nearly 20 years I've been here. Link to post Share on other sites
Go Native 70 Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 What's the altitude of Yuzawa? Link to post Share on other sites
SnowJapan Admin SnowJapan#Andrew 6 Posted February 11, 2011 SnowJapan Admin Share Posted February 11, 2011 Echigo Yuzawa shink station is at 365m. Link to post Share on other sites
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