The Asian Reporter
Pacific Northwest News q Volume 30 Number 4 q March 2, 2020 q www.asianreporter.com
Olympic bidder Sapporo
experiences erratic snowfall
SNOW SCULPTURES. A tourist wearing a mask walks past a snow sculpture during the 71st Sapporo Snow Festival last month at Odori Park in Sapporo, Japan. Held in the capital city of Hokkaido, the snow festival has been
one of the largest winter celebrations in Japan. It showcases more than 200 ice and snow sculptures for the hundreds of thousands of daily visitors. Odori Park is scheduled to serve as the start and finish points for the marathon
and race walk events at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics this summer. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
By Jae C. Hong
The Associated Press
APPORO, Japan — After two months of almost no
snow, Japan’s northern city of Sapporo was
overwhelmed with the white stuff.
About 14 inches of snow fell in just six hours
following the nearly barren months of December and
January.
The snowfall was good news for tourism, for the “look” of
the annual Sapporo Snow Festival, and for organizers
who hope to bring the 2030 Winter Olympics to the city.
Sapporo hosted the Winter Olympics back in 1972.
But the lack of snow — and then an abundance of it — is
also a sign that the local climate is changing, which has
researchers in the area watching the weather very closely.
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“We often have this kind of event,” Dr. Tomonori Sato,
an associate professor at Hokkaido University, told The
Associated Press. “However, the magnitude was
abnormal. This maybe is because of warming tempera-
tures.”
Sato predicts that Hokkaido, the island where Sapporo
is located, will have more warming winters, which has to
be a worry for an area that is officially bidding for the
Winter Olympics.
According to Sato, January’s average daily minimum
temperature in Sapporo has been continually rising:
almost 16.2º Fahrenheit (9º Celsius) over the course of a
century based on his analysis.
“It has shifted dramatically,” Sato said.
Sato said there will be snow if Sapporo gets the Winter
Olympics. But he couldn’t guarantee much snow 80 years
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“Even if Sapporo gets snow, it will melt right away,”
Sato said. “At the end of this century, it will be difficult [to]
maintain the snow festival.”
In fact, it was difficult to keep the snow festival going
this year.
Trucks had to bring in snow from everywhere to keep
the festival going, an event that attracts hundreds of
thousands of tourists. The city’s 40-year-old ski marathon
event was cancelled due to a lack of snow.
Paul Sheehan, an Australian who has been coming to
Japan for several years to build snow sculptures, noticed
the difference this time in Sapporo’s Odori Park.
“Previous years, we’ve had three, four meters of snow,”
he said. “Where we are standing now, last year we were a
meter higher. We are now standing one meter lower.”