Mount Fuji with its peak covered with a light dusting of snow is seen in this photo taken from a Mainichi Shimbun helicopter above the Yamanashi Prefecture village of Narusawa on Sept. 7, 2021. (Mainichi/Hiroshi Maruyama)
KOFU -- Mount Fuji's 25-day-early first snowcap of the season announcement was rescinded by the local meteorological office on Sept. 22, after a new daily average high temperature was recorded on the mountain in central Japan.
Average highest temperatures on the summit were updated Sept. 20. Because they didn't fulfill the criteria for the season's first snowcap, the latest record announced Sept. 7 was rescinded. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency's (JMA) Kofu Local Meteorological Office, the criteria for Mount Fuji's first snowcap of the season involves a member of the office confirming by sight the state of the mountain's peak after it deems that the year's highest average daily temperatures at the summit have been recorded.
This year, the highest observed average temperature at the top of Mount Fuji was 9.2 degrees Celsius on Aug. 4, and numbers had fallen below this value since. As a result, 9.2 C was finalized as the highest temperature, and the snowcap announced Sept. 7. The first snowcap of the season came 25 days earlier than in a normal year, and 21 days sooner than in 2020.
But on Sept. 20, warm winds blew from the south and close to the mountain's peak -- at around the 3,000-meter mark -- and led to recordings of 10.3 C on Mount Fuji.
The Kofu Local Meteorological Office explained its dilemma, saying: "Temperature changes on the summit this year are acute, and it's difficult to make a decision to finalize a highest temperature."
The JMA's Tokyo Regional Headquarters said that among remaining records of the highest average temperatures on Mount Fuji dating back to 2009, there has never been an instance where the season's first snowcap record has been rescinded.
(Japanese original by Satoru Yamamoto, Kofu Bureau)
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