Things I'm grateful for during winter in Japan: road sprinklers

Having never lived in a snowy location before my Japan chapter, one of the things that terrified me the most was the idea of driving in the snow. I like to consider myself as a good driver, but snowy driving can turn into a bit of a slip ‘n’ slide fest if it gets cold enough to ice over – and that’s even when winter tires are used. Maybe it's easier if you've lived in snowy conditions all your life, but hey...that wasn't my situation!

We’re really fortunate in Niigata that since it doesn’t really get below freezing very often (or if so, it’s maybe -1 or -2 Celsius). Because of that, we can have a system of sprinklers on the roads that constantly run groundwater to melt the snow away. You can learn more about them here, but they were first trialed in the 1950s and used to work off a manually-operated system. These days, they detect snowfall and start pumping out water automatically, so your path is always clear to get from A to B.

The little circles you see in the middle of the road pump out water when snow starts!

I think they’re such a cool invention, and they absolutely make winters in snow country much more bearable. I’m extremely grateful for them!