Stormy Weather

That's not dandruff...they're snowflakes., a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

Yesterday a strong storm blew over most of Japan. I remember reading that offshore wind speeds of higher than 100km/h had been recorded. Inland where I am we had the power lines dancing and the building shaking a little. Some students, especially the younger ones, stayed home. A co-worker told me that he looked out on his balcony this morning and found a pair of slippers, perfectly lined up as if waiting for someone to step into them, sitting there. A bit of an odd discovery if I should say so myself.

One thing that happens in such situations is that the trains are halted once the wind speed gets too high. A friend who once worked on the Yamagata Shinkansen recalled being on trains which were halted for half an hour under those conditions. If the wind speed were to pick up again at the 28th minute (or so) then they'd have to sit there for another 30 minutes. That's just the nature of the business.

Aside from strong winds, we're still getting small amounts of snowfall. April Fool's Day was several days ago and this joke of "It's spring...Ha! Ha! No it isn't!" is starting to wear really thin. We're planning an Ohanami party at work for staff and students. Given the conditions I have no idea if there will be any bloom on the day we've picked which is April 22nd. We can't hold it the following week because it's the start of Uesugi Matsuri and Golden Week. By May 12th or so we expect all the blossoms to have fallen.

Someone asked me online "How far north are you?". The snowy conditions don't have that much to do with our latitude (it's 37.9˚N). It has a lot to do with geography I think. The cold air comes rumbling in from the Sea of Japan and slams into the mountains surrounding the city. We're at the southern end of a basin plain ("bonchi" 盆地 in Japanese) and in a pocket with low mountains to the west and higher mountains to the south and east. The elevation of the city is only 267m (compared to 1048m for Calgary).

I learned a new word today: "Antifebrile". It's a medical adjective describing something which can reduce one's fever. As a noun it is the agent which reduces fever. I had asked around the class if anyone had allergies and one student said she was allergic to "genetsuyaku" (解熱剤). Her electronic translation dictionary had brought up the English definitions of antifebrile and antipyretic. I made a note about the former on the class record. It's just one of those things which is peculiar enough that you want to keep track of it....