A meizanologist's diary (114)

12 January: thanks to yesterday’s cold front, which swept away the haze, we get a clear view of Japan’s top mountain from the morning Kagayaki. 

It is Mt Fuji that hales us to Tokyo today, for a meeting of the Fuyō Nikki no Kai. This is a research association dedicated to the memory of the meteorologist Nonaka Itaru and his wife Chiyoko, who held out on the summit of Mt Fuji for almost three months in the winter of 1895 while they made weather observations.

As usual, we meet in the offices of the non-profit organisation that leases the buildings of Mt Fuji's former summit weather station. After the weathermen went down the mountain for the last time in 2004, their jobs taken over by automated instruments, the NPO has kept up the buildings so that high-altitude researchers can use them during the summer months.

This year, the NPO Mt Fuji Research Station will celebrate its second decade, and we discuss how to mark the event (please watch this space). After the meeting, our association’s literary scholar presses a bag of Mt Fuji-themed confectionery into our hands. 

And, in case we feel in need of more cerebral fare, a former head of the weather station lends us some DVDs about its illustrious backstory.

Now it looks as if we have some homework to do…