Tenki Diary 7 Dec 07

First week of December and regular but light snowfalls have started. 4cm of new snow at 7am, although at 960m it is heavy and dense (64 kg/m³ vs. 51 kg/m³ from a few days ago - see my weather data). Hopefully this higher density layer will not be too thick.

Here is a good example of the warmth of the Earth – pic taken with mobile phone. My road has a few small bridges and where the road loses contact with ground, the snow does not melt as fast. This picture was taken after 4cm new snow at 6.30am.  It explains why early morning road bridges are icy car crash zones: 1. less thermal melt from the Earth, 2. sinking cold air breezes downriver over the bridge in the early hours of the still morning (katabatic wind) so adding to the ice. Be careful of bridges when driving. There is one heading north out of Hakuba that leads onto a downhill bend in the road. It has claimed 3 cars this winter already, including ours.

It was katabatic winds that made early morning waves at river mouths remain offshore whilst up and down the beach the wind had turned light onshore.