Snowfall in Tokyo in November - For First Time in 54 Years

If anything happens for the first time in half a century - it's newsworthy. That's happening in the heart of Tokyo since last night - the first snowfall in November. Not so heavy a snowfall, but it's a decent one as early as this.

A heavy cold belt set in above the Kanto Area November 24 and the temperature quickly dropped during the night to turn the entire Kanto Plain snow-white. The Meteorological Agency forecasts a heavier snowfall to ensure and warnings are passed to relevant bodies controlling public traffic and power lines.

It started to snow at 6:15 November 24 morning in Tokyo - 40 days earlier than average years and 49 days than last year. The first snowfall was recorded also in Mito, Utsunomiya, Maebashi, Kumagaya, Yokohama and Kofu.

A dominant low pressure with a front is moving eastwards.  A cold belt, 3 degrees below zero, is moving south 1500 meters above the Kanto-Koshinetsu area, threatening snowfalls lingering into the daytime November 24. Along the hilly areas, it should reach 15 centimeters, 10 centimeters in Hakone, Tama, and Chichibu areas; the entire Kanto Plain will have 5 centimeters and the central Tokyo area 2 centimeters.

It's not such a big deal as compared with northern areas but 10 centimeters of snow in urban areas can be a disaster - road and railway traffic, occasional power stoppage, etc. JR Chuo Line momentarily suspended operations.

Snowfall stats show that the heaviest snowfall on the ground level in Japan was 750 centimeters, recorded in 1945  at Toyama City. In the mountain areas the heaviest, 1,182 centimeters, was marked in Mt. Ibuki, Shiga in 1927. (Nathan Shiga)