In case you’re sick of snow already, and you don’t call Sapporo, Japan, your home, this should cheer you up. The snowiest city in the world by far is the Japanese city just mentioned. If you don’t believe it, just go to http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=176027.
At 630 cm or 248 inches on average in snowfall, the city of Sapporo plays host to a harsh winter condition year after year, climate change notwithstanding. Do you feel good already?
And you thought being on top of Mt. Everest was the worst, or living in some remote village in Canada, or a town in the United States where snow blowers fear to tread. Well, not quite.
Sapporo’s 1,890,561-population has to live with the fact that there’s no escaping the snow when it arrives. The trick is to embrace it, and to worry about all the snow maintenance later. Otherwise, you get sick of it, as anybody who lives in Toronto, Saskatoon, or Calgary will tell you.
It also helps to adapt a “winter, where is thy sting” approach, by wearing one of those killer winter rubber shoes from Nike or is it winter killer shoe brands? You can even buy some snow-traction support for just one dollar from the nearest dollar store. Just attach to the bottom of your shoes and you’re ready to go. Bite me, winter!
By far, the best idea is perhaps to do some serious ice-skating on a real snowy day in your favorite skating rink in the city. For sure, the maintenance guy will thank you for it, since there are likely to be only few such people skating to their heart’s content out there.
Second place goes to Saguenay in Quebec, Canada, which logs 342 cm of snowfall annually. Saguenay is quickly followed by St. John’s in Newfoundland at 322, and by Quebec City at 316. Sorry, no American cities have made it to the top ten, as fifth place goes to Sherbrooke (294), followed by Sudbury (274), Trois-Rivieres (241), the Canadian capital Ottawa (236), Halifax (231), and Montreal (218), which, by the way, is so lovely in winter.
Montreal boasts of an Underground City where mall rats can stay below ground zero and not see snow the whole season through. What a pity!
No. 11 is London, Ontario at 202 cm, followed by Georgetown, Colorado (finally) at 160 cm. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. But no matter how heavy the snowfall, no U.S. city ever comes close to the heaviest snowfall in Japan, or for that matter, Canada.
“Growing up in Boston”, posts Blade_bltz in the infamous Skyscraperpage.com forum, “the worst winter I ever had was in ’95-’96, we got 108.” Get the point?
So what if some remote city in Japan, or mostly Canadian cities get the most snow in the world, year after year, huh? If we’re to believe Al Gore of The Inconvenient Truth fame, the rules of the game are bound to change anyway, what with the amount of carbons that we humans are filling the atmosphere with on a daily basis.
It’s really scary. The most recent National Geographic TV documentary on dinosaurs is still trying to find out how these North Pole-based beasts thrived in wintry environment until the Great Asteroid hit the earth over 65 million years ago. Until the jury is out on the plight of the most notorious Jurassic creatures, mankind will never know for sure whether to pack up and leave once all the snow melts.
And so, while the average North American dweller complains about all the excessive snow on those winter boots, why doesn’t he or she think about what will happen (Sesame Street style) when there’s no more snow left to look forward to. Are you happy yet?
Other Sources:
http://www.currentresults.com/Weather-Extremes/Canada/snowiest-cities.php
http://www.currentresults.com/Weather-Extremes/US/snowiest.php
