The lack of snow cover in December left the mountain of Japan’s image looking a little different than usual.
Even as snowfall is higher on the west coast of Japan, much of the eastern half of the country has avoided a massive snowfall this winter. In particular, Mount Fuji’s iconic snow cap – usually seen through December – has been small or absent this year.
The mountain peak, the highest in Japan, found dust on September 28, 2020, the first snowfall of the year. But that melted away quickly, and Fuji didn’t have snowfall in the coming months. Standard difference index views (NDSI) from NASATerra satellite reveals that snow cover on the mountain last month was among the lowest in the satellite’s 20-year record for any December.
December 29, 2013
Ground-based weather stations provided a similar view. “Stations around Mount Fuji recorded much less rain than usual in December,” said Toshio Iguchi, a remote sensing scientist based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “During December 24, it was only 10 per cent of an average year.” Weather data also show that the temperature around the mountain was surprisingly warm in the first two weeks of December.
In the images at the top of the page, the high bare slopes of the mountain were visible with the Active Land Image (OLI) on Landsat 8 satellite on January 1, 2021. The other image, also acquired by OLI, shows Mount Fuji on December 29, 2013. It was slightly higher than the mountain of snow in December 2013, according to Terra NDSI observations.
January 1, 2021
Towards the end of December 2020, the mountain finally caught heavy snow. But even cold weather in January does not guarantee the snow cap will last. “After a few days, the snow cap was greatly reduced, possibly by a gust of wind,” said Teppei Yasunari, a remote sensing scientist based at University of Hokkaido.
While the local weather is crucial if a Fuji snow captain is present on a particular day, long-term climate data shows that the highest conditions are changing. One recent study found that the mountain timber line had moved up 30 meters (100 feet) over the past four decades, possibly as a result of phase 2. Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) an increase in summer temperatures near the peak.
NASA Landscaping Images by Joshua Stevens, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey and MODIS data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center.