A Technique protecting the Road against Snowdrifts in the Southwest Piedmont of Mt. Bandai, Fukushima Prefecture

Abstract

Though rather unknown, the southwest piedmont of Mt. Bandai (Fig. 1) has heavy snow in winter and the depth of snow reaches its maximum on a spot along the road connecting hotels of a spa to the railway station (Fig. 2) which was forced to cease its function as motorway by the winter snowdrift till the beginning of 1970's.Thereafter, in order not to close hotels, a snowplow has been used for the security of automobile traffic in snow season. On the occasion, a skillful technique has been conceived to protect the road against snow at the spot of heavy snowdrift where the construction of snowbreak or snowshed is difficult on account that the road runs through a private field.On the field upwind the road snow is accumulated by the snowplow in two parallel dikes along it (Fig. 3). Once accumulated, the dikes prevent snow drifting on road and secure the auto- traffic for three days which are usually the longest duration of a snowfall in this region.It is interesting that this wholly empirical technique fits both on snowfall and economic condition of this area.