Snow damage in Niigata city caused by the heavy snowfall in Feb., 1983

In mid-February 1983, a heavy snowfall deposited on Niigata city of 460 thousand inhabitants and created various snow damage. Particularly, it considerably paralyzed road, rail and air traffic. Total of snowfall amounts in the 1982-83 winter (277cm) was only 1.6 times as much as the normal. But the amounts of successive snowfall from February 6-14 (149cm) was 2.6 times as much as the annual mean of maximum amounts of successive snowfall and 5.2 times as much as the one restricted in February. That is the 1982-83 snowfall on Niigata concentrated in a short period late in the winter with unexpected intensity for February (Fig. 2). Drifting created by the combination of strong winds and low temperature rarely in Niigata confused traffic moreover on 12-13 February (Fig. 3). Farm installations and products (Photo. 3) suffered main direct snow damage in Niigata and the amount of it reached 75 million yen. As seen in Fig. 4, seasonal operations of snow removal are increased rapidly as seasonal snowfall amounts increases. Total number of snow removal distances and snow removal bill for city roads in the 1982-83 winter increased to 7,987 km and 199 million yen, compared with the averages for last five years of 2,875 km and 55 million yen respectively