00:00:03 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to the city of Tokyo. It is a really cold day. You can see there's the base of Tokyo Skytree just smothered in clouds. Do you see that? Just past the Eitaibashi, that blue bridge right there. You can see the Tokyo-Shuto Expressway just above the bridge there going around the city. And yeah, the Skytree completely just swallowed by the clouds. I can hardly see it.

00:00:33 John Daub: It is a cold one. It is zero. And there is a winter storm warning for Tokyo, meaning heavy snow. At least that's what the Japan Meteorological Agency said. But we haven't gotten it yet. It's just rain right now, which is probably a good thing. Tokyo in general doesn't get as much snowfall as you might think, because Japan has hosted Winter Olympics in the past. So this episode I thought I would talk about the average snowfall of Tokyo and what is it like when it does snow here. And a little bit about Tokyo too, because people don't realize just how big Tokyo really is, not just in population, in terms of landmass. So let's get moving.

00:01:22 John Daub: This is Chuo-bashi (Chuo Bridge). This is a main bridge that goes straight on to Tokyo Station if you keep walking straight. This, of course, is the Sumida River in central Tokyo. And if we take a look really quickly, this is the city of Tokyo. It's quite large. Do you see the red lines going around it? That's the border for the Tokyo Metropolis, which goes back quite a ways into like the Chichibu area near Saitama. There are mountains in Tokyo, believe it or not. And yeah, there's definitely snow out there in the west. But here where the blue spot is where I am located, that's the center of Tokyo.

00:02:08 John Daub: There's 23 wards in Tokyo, just like New York City has five boroughs. I'm in Chuo Ward, which is in the center there. Yeah, no snow yet. However, it is on the way, or at least it looks like it's on the way. Check it out here. Here's the radar. You can see here there's that purple supposed to be rain or almost rain, and there's Sendai up above. That's definitely snow up there. The purple is supposed to be snow. There's Nagoya on the bottom of the screen. Tokyo is on the bottom right. I'll zoom in here onto Tokyo. Kanazawa is on the Sea of Japan to the left there.

00:03:06 John Daub: This is from the Yahoo weather. Yahoo is still a thing in Japan. I guess it's supposed to snow later, maybe tonight. It's hard to say. Tokyo does not do well with snow. Here's the temperatures for Tokyo here. Now this is in Fahrenheit because most people watching are from the US. I guess I can give you the Celsius verbally. January 1st here, we have highs around 50, which is 10 degrees Celsius. Lows around 38, hovering around 2 or 3 degrees Celsius.

00:03:56 John Daub: In February, which is right now, which is the coldest time of year, Tokyo's average highs are about 46 to 49 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about 9 degrees Celsius. It's pretty warm actually. The lows get to near freezing, like 36 degrees Fahrenheit or about 2 degrees Celsius. Right now, it's colder than the average for sure. So Tokyo's winters are certainly not very cold at all, comparatively. I think it's almost like Southern Virginia or something. It's hard to compare, but it's a very fair-weathered city. So if you're just visiting Tokyo, you don't need to dress too warm, but it does feel a lot colder, especially in the rain here.

00:04:49 John Daub: Here's also the 24-hour weather. You can see it here. It says here, heavy snow warning, right there. Crazy, right? You can see the hour by hour weather changes on the right side, on the left side of the screen here. It's supposed to be zero, and then one to two, about one degree. I'm guessing tonight, it's going to snow. And what happens tomorrow? I don't know. But usually it'll be chaos ensuing because Tokyo again, the sidewalks are super slick. People falling down all the time. They do their best to plow, but they're not set up for snow like Sendai and the cities up north are like Hokkaido.

00:05:38 John Daub: We have these things called tsubedome (shoe grips), which are these things you'll put on your shoes, which grip. They're kind of, you can get them at convenience stores when the snow comes. They're like these black rubber band things with grips on the toes that you just put around your shoes. And that makes sure you don't slip on the ice. And if you're up watching the Sapporo Snow Festival, it's probably a good idea to get something like that too. Like snow tires for your shoes.

00:07:05 John Daub: Here's the average snowfall totals in the city of Tokyo right there. It's 2004. We had something called Snowpio [?]. It was pretty crazy. Actually 2018 as well. These are the two biggest years in the last 10 years with snowfall records. These are centimeters by the way, that's not even inches. 49 centimeters. I don't know like a foot and a half. Maybe it's like 50 centimeters is half a meter. So about a foot and a half of snow Tokyo doesn't get that much. You can see 2017 0, 2021 0, 2021 and 2020 and 2019 were really low years.

00:08:09 John Daub: So yeah, really if it snows, it's usually gone the next day. So when it does snow in Tokyo, it's worth going outside and reporting on it because it just doesn't snow that much. You're like yes, no and 12 hours later. Ah, that stinks. 2014 I remember because the sidewalks were super icy for weeks. There was a cold spell on top of the snow. It would melt it would freeze over and then it was really bad and come the morning commutes were really dangerous in that year. Again, Tokyo not set up for that.

00:08:47 John Daub: But if you are visiting Japan between December and March and believe it or not, it can snow all the way up to the cherry blossoms here. Be prepared, you never know. But if you're just staying in the city, it's not going to be too cool. If you're traveling to other places outside of Tokyo, you're going to have views like this. This is the Japanese Alps. I was driving there just four days ago. And it was absolutely beautiful out there. That's where of course they hold the Olympics and a lot of the sports from the Nagano Olympics '98 set are a lot of snow famous for that out there.

00:09:47 John Daub: Tomorrow I'll be doing another livestream talking about the currency in Japan. When you do come, what is it? Will the yen get back to 150 yen to the dollar? I'll be talking about that tomorrow. And if you want join me on the Patreon Postcard Club. I send these out every month new postcard with Mount Fuji. This one is the shinkansen going by at warp speed. You can see there's some motion blur. So you get one a month helps to support the channel. Thank you for our many backers on Patreon for making this series possible.

00:10:23 John Daub: So there you go. Hope everybody's doing well. Stay warm. I will report back to you if there is massive snowfall fingers crossed that there is because the city is just so pretty. It's almost worth getting on the shinkansen and going really quick to Kyoto to see it. I know it's a little bit of a dusting on Kinkaku-ji and some of the other temples, but everybody's thinking the same thing and it's awful to wait in line to go and do that. But sometimes it's worth it. Yeah, if it snows, I'll be back on maybe tonight midnight snack run. Sub-zero midnight snack run. So I get some ice cream.