Tokyo can't handle heavy snowfall

I do not mind heavy snowfall during work days, so we can be excused for a day or so with pay.

On the morning of last year's snowfall, Tokyoites were slipping and sliding all over the snow and ice covered streets and sidewalks.

It is very hard to keep heating devices when there is no electricity. Simple gas heaters that no not require electricity seem no longer available. Similarly, household paraffin heaters are require electricity so that they can play annoying tunes or tell you to open a window.

Though it will cause major disruptions, a heavy snowfall and other extreme weather events may be the only thing that wakes people up from their over-consumptive and convenience addicted lifestyles and gets them thinking seriously about human induced climate change. Some people will suffer, but far more are suffering and will suffer as the planet continues to warm, oceans rise and weather patterns change.

@gaijintraveller you can still find plenty of no-electric models made by Corona, Toyotomi and others. Search for 石油ストーブ

This article is pure misinformation and hysteria.

Sapio points out that the biggest problems caused by a heavy snowfall would be the city’s water and electricity. If the temperature drops below minus 4 degrees Celsius for several hours, water in the pipes freezes and expands, causing pipes to rupture.

I live in an area of Japan where the temperature has been below -4 for the last day or so . My toilet is fine, my pipes are not frozen. The author's claim is untrue. I've heard of this happening in places in the far north of Japan where the temperature stays below -10 or so for days, but not where I live. The solution is so simple that it is ridiculous, just run the water a trickle and it never freezes.

According to the aforementioned Watanabe, the cause of the outage was the collapse of steel towers supporting power transmission lines caused by heavy snowfalls.

The author seriously believes that a couple of kgs of snow sitting on the towers will cause them to collapse? Either the Tokyo power towers are INCREDIBLY badly constructed (in which case a strong wind would collapse them) or this is utter nonsense.

I could go on, but this article is so ridiculous that I'm shocked it was published.

Tokyo can handle pretty good earthquake so handling any snowfall and few broken pipes should be next to nothing for city of Tokyo.

Might be a problem in Tokyo, but living in Amori Prefecture for almost four years I know one thing, one gets use to the snow and cold and go with life!

We just had about 40cm of snow and -25 C in Chicago and we survived. People are too comfortable in the Tokyo area.

I have seen a light snow covering cause havoc here in the Tokyo area. So it doesn't matter if it's light or heavy, any kind of snow handcuffs Tokyo ...

Not going to happen

@Frungy

The author seriously believes that a couple of kgs of snow sitting on the towers will cause them to collapse? Either the Tokyo power towers are INCREDIBLY badly constructed (in which case a strong wind would collapse them) or this is utter nonsense.

We are talking about thermal expansion. The volume of iron will get smaller and in the same time the volume of water will get bigger.

So which is it now?!? Are we going to burn to a crisp here on earth or are we going to freeze to death as this NEW ice age begins? The media just loves this crap and can't sell enough of it. Snow is snow and if people just used some common sense, they can easily deal with it.

If you, as most of us living in an earthquake zone, have your emergency 72 hour kit at the ready then if you get stuck at home when the power goes out due to a horrific snowfall, you should be prepared. Unless so much of the stuff falls and it's really wet and heavy, your house will fair much better than during a quake and you'll have plenty of things to talk about with your neighbours as you plow the snow out of the way.

Relax,... winters used to be like this and some people had to walk to school in a metre of snow, 15 kms, uphill, BOTH WAYS or so the stories go.

hamelnJan. 12, 2014 - 09:40PM JST We are talking about thermal expansion. The volume of iron will get smaller and in the same time the volume of water will get bigger.

Tokyo regularly hits zero during winters, and another 4 degrees down shouldn't make a difference if the towers were engineered properly with the normal safety margins. If they are falling down then the problem is the normal one in Japan, that someone cut corners during construction. When someone cuts corners during construction and substitutes sub-standard materials then ANYTHING could cause a disaster. The problem isn't winter, the problem is backhanders and back-room deals in Tokyo. The solution isn't to whine about the weather, the solution is to go looking for the construction company owner and arrest them.

Article says transmission rowers collapsed in Tokyo, can only find a picture from Shimane...colour me skeptical.

As for the snowfall - come to Tohoku you wimps!

Article says transmission rowers collapsed in Tokyo,

Article says Chiba, not Tokyo.

I love snow in Tokyo---- it is always great entertainment. Like a Charlie Chaplin movie live on the streets. Drivers and pedestrians are totally clueless about how deal with snow here.

"But neither the government nor private companies own so much as a single dedicated snow removal vehicle, so the task is entrusted to bulldozer operators at construction companies."

Is this another potential disaster and windfall for construction companies? Sound familiar?

"But neither the government nor private companies own so much as a single dedicated snow removal vehicle, so the task is entrusted to bulldozer operators at construction companies."

The JSDF has bulldozers.

http://www.military-today.com/engineering/type_75.htm

It's under control.

more than 5 cm, and Tokyo is kind of clueless... I think the number of broken limbs and car (slow speed) crashed suddenly increases a few times...

I think an inability to cope with heavy snowfall is quite a common thing. In January last year, Britain experienced one of the coldest winters on record, and Britain seemed to grind to a halt. Didn't really affect me though. I had the week off for the worst of it, and I live on the coast. I quite like the snow anyway. Unless 30 inches of it falls, I'll be fine. Trains seem to get cancelled at the drop of a hat. Or a leaf. It's amazing that anyone even uses them. My advice: Chill out, don't panic.

I am canadian and moving to japan, and the one thing i made sure of, is I looked into living in a place with snow, snow and me mix, embrace the white snow as your friend :)

I don't remember any panic during last year's snow here in central Tokyo (Shinjuku).

gokai_wo

" I don't remember any panic during last year's snow here in central Tokyo (Shinjuku). "

Last year, there was not much snow to speak of. Still, enough for some epic entertainment here in Shinagawa.

i think we do a pretty good job in tokyo. look what happens in the UK when there is more than an inch of snow.......

i think we do a pretty good job in tokyo. look what happens in the UK when there is more than an inch of snow.......

Whenever there is snow in the UK commentators come out with the same commetns about Scandinavian countries having several feet of snow and not being affected as though the UK were uniquely inept. I think back to Japan and much the same is true - the residents of Yuki-Guni live with heavy snowfall for several months of the year and look at Tokyo with amusement when a couple of centimetres brings it to a standstill.

The truth is that you build your infrastructure according to your typical conditions. Tokyo could spend a fortune on being snow-ready, but as it rarely snows, it is cheaper to have a day of disruption once a year. The northern kens need to be resiliant to snow for much of the year and so plan accordingly.

@Frungy "a couple of kgs of snow sitting on the towers will cause them to collapse"

The problem is generally with ice accumulating on the power lines. Depending on conditions, this can add a huge weight. Tons rather than kilograms. It's not unusual to read of electric towers collapsing from heavy snow falls in Europe and North America.

I live in an area of Japan where the temperature has been below -4 for the last day or so . My toilet is fine, my pipes are not frozen. The author's claim is untrue. I've heard of this happening in places in the far north of Japan where the temperature stays below -10 or so for days, but not where I live. The solution is so simple that it is ridiculous, just run the water a trickle and it never freezes.

This isn't only dependent on weather, it's dependent on how deep the pipes are buried. In general, they are buried at a distance considered "safe", below the penetration level of freezing temperatures. Where I'm from, Québec, we sometimes get -10 or -20 cold waves in winter and water pipes tend to resist, because they're really buried deep in the ground, and our homes tend to be well insulated with good central heating. Still, I had an uncle who let the faucet run in really cold waves to avoid having water freeze in the pipes.

But if Tokyo's water pipes aren't built to deal with cold temperatures and are too close to the surface, then they can break even at -4 like the author says.

The author seriously believes that a couple of kgs of snow sitting on the towers will cause them to collapse? Either the Tokyo power towers are INCREDIBLY badly constructed (in which case a strong wind would collapse them) or this is utter nonsense.

Power line towers are built to support a certain weight, essentially their own weight and the weight of cables, with maybe a little snow added to them (and wind). If there is more snow than expected, then towers might collapse. Again, in Québec, we had an ice storm in 1998, with up to 70 mm of freeing rain resulting in nearly 2-3 inches of ice buildup on everything. Towers did collapse at that time, it's one of the lasting images of the disaster, rows of power lines crumbled under the weight of ice. Just Google it.

Power line towers are built according to local climate predictions, but if the predictions say that the 1 in a century event has 10 cm of snow falling, but there falls 40 m of them, then towers may well fall, because the weight they have to support is beyond the specifications for which they were designed.

Why not design them to be tougher? Cost, essentially. Overdesigning structures costs a lot of money.

Tokyo can't handle ANYTHING heavy.... !!

Meanwhile in Atlanta ...