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Temperatures plunge across Japan; heavy snow hits Hokkaido

27 Comments

Temperatures plunged across much of Japan on Wednesday as a cold air mass brought rain to the Kanto region and heavy snow to Hokkaido.

In Sapporo, 44 cms of snow had fallen as of 11 a.m., the highest amount in 62 years for this time of November, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

In Tokyo, at noon, the temperature was 8.9 degrees, a drop of 7 degrees from Tuesday, the agency said.

The agency said the Kanto, Japan Sea Coast and Tohoku regions are experiencing temperatures that are average for December.

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27 Comments
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El Nino is prolonged warming of Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures; el Nina is prolonged cooling of Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures. Both are related to global changes in temperature and rainfall.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Who cares what's causing it? We've finally got snow and I'll be hitting the slopes soon. Ahh, I've been waiting since the snow melted last season.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Does el nino affect Japan? In Asia, it would be called el Nina. El Niño is for the west coast of America. But yes, it should affect Japan.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

And, last week it was 23' in Tokyo.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

About 95% of all lifeforms on earth are already extinct. Gone. Never to be seen again. Climate change happens over tens of thousands of years, and scientists who state unequivocally that global warming has occurred are not scientists. Science, because of its every nature, will not make definite statements of fact (because a hypothesis can never be 'proven'), but will speak in terms of possibilities and probabilities. Since it wasn't warming fast enough for the tree huggers, they had to change the term to 'climate change' so they can remain a viable PAC in any weather to gather more government funds to waste, playing around with alternate power forms which are even worse for the atmosphere.

The earth has taken a lot of wear and tear over the years, and humans are not even a concern to the earth. If the earth decides we are a concern, we will be eliminated, just like the rest of the 95% of the life forms which have disappeared.

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

This event has nothing to do with the topic of climate change. We have here a localized meteorological event, trying to link it to global climate change is absurd.

Now let's rather mention the real problem with this snow fall. That is, the city of Sapporo is really starting to annoy me with its poor snow removal service (all privatized by the way via greedy and corrupted construction companies). It took me two hours to go to work when it takes usually 30 minutes. The problem was that the road was barely usable as it was covered with bumps of ice. In many major main roads used by a lot of cars, the surface of the road was terribly chaotic. It was impossible to cross some intersections at anything higher than 10 km/h or the car would just break. There were several accidents too.

My question is what the city is doing? Why in early morning snow removal cars were not deployed? They just left the roads untouched and drivers had to battle with this mess. Really the roads are a total mess and it's dangerous. What are they thinking?

I am paying my damn expensive taxes to avoid precisely such chaos. The situation was totally odd, I could not see any snow removing car around, the city was just abandoned.

I am going back home soon, I don't think they cleaned the road....

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

It always amazes me how some people cant see the OBVIOUS, ie mankind is spewing so much pollution, cutting down forests like crazy etc............how could we NOT be affecting the earths climate!

And to the people who point out spikes in cold, warm, drought, floods..........you need to remember we are talking about global climate change NOT LOCAL changes! You need to look at the bigger picture!

And yes as Strangerland CORRECTLY points out we have been able to look at climate over many THOUSANDS of years, thanks to various scientific fields, hello!

And another thing folks the changes up & down in the PAST are over many THOUSANDS 100s of thousands of years in geologic time, where as NOW we are experiencing major changes in years/decades..........but I am probably wasting my breath as this is too difficult to comprehend for many sadly.

Hint YES mankind starting from the 1900's onwards is having an INCREASINGLY stronger affect on GLOBAL climate, mother nature takes her sweet time on her own, mankind has pushed things into overdrive & we are paying for & it will get worse should be obvious, but alas!

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Which is why we use science to determine what temperatures were over the past thousands of years...

And come up with a whole range of results, depending on how the "science" was conducted. Sometimes it seems there is a set of results to satisfy every belief, which can be seen in some of the comments here. Are you not idealizing science too much?

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

Does el nino affect Japan?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I've just come back from Japan where temperatures were between 18 and 25 centigrade much of the time... summer for me. I come back to the UK and there's ice on the cars! Talk about a shock to the system. To be honest I would have enjoyed myself more had the temperatures been around the 10c level, lol

I hope everyone wraps up well and if it snows... stay off the roof!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

you do realize that we (mankind) has only really been keeping what we consider accurate weather data for only about 150 years at the most.

You do realize that scientists are able to use science to determine what temperatures were before we started collecting data, right?

the change in temperature may seem extreme in one person's lifetime, but that doesn't reflect what has happened over the past thousand years

Which is why we use science to determine what temperatures were over the past thousands of years. And it's also why the scientists are telling us it's man-made, as the changes are not happening at a rate in which it has happened in the past, but rather much, much faster.

4 ( +8 / -4 )

In Tokyo, at noon, the temperature was 8.9 degrees, a drop of 7 degrees from Tuesday, the agency said.

Aha! That explains a lot. In sunny days, my 2nd room facing south is so warm even from late fall to winter that I can mostly go without turning on the air conditioner during the day.

But in cloudy and rainy days, temperature in my room drops significantly as described in this article. And, um, this will surely date me, but I can't wait for the glasshouse-like room in a sunny day. Hope I didn't strike the wrong note. ;(

1 ( +1 / -0 )

What's hot. Temperatures plunge...

1 ( +1 / -0 )

FINALLY. None of the snow resorts were able to open last weekend as expected because warmer than expected weather in November. All these "somewhat cool, yet not quite warm" days were doing my head in. Bring on the single digits (in Tokyo... Niigata/Nagano should be in negatives)!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Not unexpected rather welcome news for Paris Climate Change Conference next week !

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Meanwhile the Sun is getting cooler and less active each sunspot cycle, but we're okay since according to the warm mongers, the Sun only supplies 1% of the global warming: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/Cycle22Cycle23Cycle24big.gif

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

@Brainiac

Extreme temperature fluctuations are partly caused by global warming.

This is why I prefer to call it "global climate instability". Personally I prefer the colder weather, and so does my car's turbocharged engine. Snowboarding in Sapporo in the dead of winter is one of my fondest memories of Japan so far.

Now I can finally wear a greater portion of my wardrobe, which I refuse to replace with "tropical" clothing despite 4 years in Okinawa.....I don't want to adopt behaviors that might suggest I'll be trapped on this sweltering jungle hotbox version of Alcatraz any longer than I have to.

If the planet will, generally-speaking, continue to get warmer, I'll definitely be moving as far north in Japan as possible....

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Extreme temperature fluctuations are partly caused by global warming.

People, you do realize that we (mankind) has only really been keeping what we consider accurate weather data for only about 150 years at the most. The earth is a lot older than that (no difference if you believe the Bible version or scientific it's still pretty old), so yes the change in temperature may seem extreme in one person's lifetime, but that doesn't reflect what has happened over the past thousand years, when there wasn't a modern industrial society and somehow the earth managed to enter and exit a few ice ages.

I am all for putting less "junk" into the air and water and believe we can do a better job at reducing pollution, but don't try to sell me that we (mankind) is causing it to snow too early.

-5 ( +7 / -12 )

most of the debate on climate change isn't on whether it's happening or not. most of the debate is whether it's man-made or not.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

44 cm in downtown Sapporo

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"Climate Change" ... so if it gets colder, it's still global warming. And if it gets warmer ... well, you get it. No matter what happens, its AGW. Meanwhile, if you read German ... this will rock your faith in the new religion of AGW: http://www.achgut.com/dadgdx/index.php/dadgd/article/sind_die_klimadaten_manipuliert

-8 ( +3 / -11 )

It's called climate change, not global warming. People can't understand global ideas so the term was changed... in the 90's. Do try to keep up.

3 ( +8 / -5 )

Wait till February, then we see cold. This is nothing.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

global warming or not, I'd rather have Miss Autumn stay a little longer, the temperatures were absolutely perfect the last couple of weeks.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Extreme temperature fluctuations are partly caused by global warming.

5 ( +10 / -5 )

Just yesterday I was hearing about this will be a warm winter because of el niño. This part of that? Stay safe, peeps.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Cue the global warming denials.

4 ( +10 / -6 )

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