Traditionally, the first snowfall on Mount Fuji marks the arrival of winter for Japanese. But this year, just 24 hours before November arrives, not a single snowflake has fallen on the iconic mountain.
This is the first time this has happened in at least 130 years, when records have begun to be kept.
Snow cover on Mount Fuji begins, on average, on October 2.
Japan’s Kofu meteorological agency, which has announced the first snowfall on Fuji every year since its establishment in 1894, has not yet done so this year, citing unusually warm weather.
The lack of snow through October 29, surpassing the previous record of October 26, set in 1955 and 2016.
Japan this year recorded the warmest summer on record since 1898, when the Meteorological Agency’s statistics began.
