Snow means different things to different people. On the one hand, he has the ability to turn even the ugliest landscape into a brilliant tale of reflected light and silence.
On the other hand, it can turn daily work into a traffic jam with congested roads and slippery sidewalks. In many places, the invisible specter of global warming is making snow less visible, and in others it is a way of life that doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon.
Based on data collected by Weather, a ranking of the snowiest big cities in the world has been compiled. To the surprise of many, the first three of them are in Japan.
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The title of the snowiest big city in the world belongs to the city of Aomori, the capital of Aomori Prefecture in the northern part of the island of Honshu, reports tripsavvy.com.
Every year the city receives an annual snowfall of 792 cm. Most of this amount falls between November and April. In the middle of winter, the city is so thickly covered that the snow, cleared of roads, rises a few meters along them.
The incredible snowfall in Aomori is due to the unique geographical position between the Hakoda Mountains and the shores of Mutsu Bay.
Colliding winds cause accelerated cloud formation, which leads to heavy rainfall in the form of mostly snow due to low temperatures in the city.
Apart from its extreme weather, the town of Aomori is famous for the production of sake, seafood and apples (during the sunny and cool summers). Every summer the city hosts the Nebuta festival, when the streets are illuminated by passing colored lanterns.
In winter, tourists come for the snow and ski and snowboard in the resorts of the nearby mountains.
In second place in the ranking of the snowiest big city is Sapporo, located on the northern island of Hokkaido.
In third place is Toyama, the capital of the prefecture of the same name. The most famous attraction there is the “Great Snow Canyon” – the mountain road Tateyama Kurobe, which is surrounded on both sides by high walls of snow. The road is closed from December to early April, but the walls can be seen on both sides until summer.
