Waking up to snow in Saitama

Saitama Prefecture is in the Kanto region, often referred to as the Greater Tokyo area, of Japan. Just like Tokyo we get relatively little snow. I think officially we probably get slightly more snow and colder winters than Tokyo, but the difference is so small it is barely worth mentioning. Moreover, although both Saitama and Tokyo got a bit of snow today, it looks like (excluding mountain regions) Tokyo got more than Saitama on this occasion.  

It was so lovely to open the shutters to this (pictured above), snow on one of the bushes in our garden. But already, at 4 pm in the day, the snow is completely gone from this bush, and from the roads, but there is still a light coat of snow on grassy areas. Much to the children's disappointment, it will probably be completely gone by morning. Moreover, they will have school as normal tomorrow.

It has been a particularly brutal winter in parts of Japan, with some areas observing record high snowfall. Hokkaido, for example, experienced its heaviest January snowfall on record. In the Kanto plain / region, we didn't see any more than usual, not so far anyway.  On average there are 8 snow days per year in Saitama, but not in my area of Saitama. We typically only get 1 day of snow a year, so waking up to snow is a rare treat.