A White Christmas?

Probably not. But snow on the ground the week before Christmas is certainly nice. Like other New England people living in Kanazawa, I find the usual gloomy, dark, rainy and snowless winter a drag. Finally, I got a break from that.

Although winter has just started, we've already gotten our first blast of winter here (I remember my first year here it didn't start until mid-January). It started around Wednesday night with thunder, sleet and winds gradually becoming stronger. As the week finished, the winds started to become pretty strong and we had sleet/hail storms all day Thursday. Colder weather moved in Thursday night and into Friday, the sleet changed over to snow and the winds at one point were about 35mph. Amazingly enough, one of the furthest areas south, Kyushu, is also getting a blast of winter. From what I hear, this is extremely rare, especially for only the middle of December.

Although the winds have died down quite a bit now, the snow is still coming down and everything is become a serene and relaxing white canvas. I certainly have no complaints about this, especially since it will probably be gone in 3 or 4 days.

Perhaps this year will be the year we have snow on the ground more often than not. According to some personal research, there is a temperature mechanism known as the pacific oscillation cycle. How this works is the ocean is constantly changing and moving. A big body of water, such as the pacific ocean, holds a lot of heat and affects temperatures greatly. There are two layers of water in the ocean: a warm layer and a cold layer. Every 35 years or so, the two layers switch. When the cold water is on top, the earth is colder. When the warm water is on top, the earth is warmer. Although I'm no scientist (which I guess even if I was it doesn't mean much these days), I have run some dates on this theory according to various weather accounts of the past and they all seem to line up pretty correctly to this 35 year cycle. If everything is as I think (and recent temperature trends appear that way), we will gradually see more "normal" winters for the next 30 years or so.

An interesting side note for this: When were people screaming that the earth is entering another ice age, only to see temperatures start to become warmer? Hm...

Enjoy the pictures and here's to a snowy winter!