{"id":75,"date":"2026-01-26T09:57:43","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T00:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmatsuura.com\/bloge\/?p=75"},"modified":"2026-01-26T10:03:32","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T01:03:32","slug":"january-2026-exceptionally-chilly-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmatsuura.com\/bloge\/2026\/01\/26\/january-2026-exceptionally-chilly-in-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"January 2026 exceptionally chilly in Japan?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s been awfully<\/em> cold this January in Tokyo. I mean, really <\/em>cold. A huge cold air mass from Siberia has been sitting over the Sea of Japan and dumped literally tons of snow on that side of the country last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honestly, the weather alone has killed my motivation. As you might know, most buildings in Japan, unless you\u2019re in Hokkaido, are not exactly built with serious insulation in mind. So when it\u2019s cold outside<\/em>, and somehow still cold inside<\/em> your apartment. I\u2019ve been feeling half-frozen all day, like I should just hibernate until March\u2026 even though my house is supposedly better insulated than average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At some point I started wondering: is this January really <\/em>colder than last year, or am I just being overreacting?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I did a quick fact check.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below is a graph showing the daily low temperatures in Saitama City (a suburb of Tokyo).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Daily low temperatures in Saitama City, Saitama (Source: Japan Meteorological Agency<\/a>)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Looking at it, this January isn\u2019t really worse than last year. If anything, it\u2019s about the same. That said, last week <\/strong>was definitely brutal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So maybe this winter isn\u2019t especially bad overall, but that one stretch of icy days really left an impression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, I’m hoping that things start to thaw soon and that spring shows up right on schedule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been awfully cold this January in Tokyo. I mean, really cold. A huge cold air mass from Siberia has been sitting over the Sea of Japan and dumped literally tons of snow on that side of the country last week. Honestly, the weather alone has killed my motivation. As you might know, most buildings […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmatsuura.com\/bloge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmatsuura.com\/bloge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmatsuura.com\/bloge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmatsuura.com\/bloge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmatsuura.com\/bloge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mmatsuura.com\/bloge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80,"href":"https:\/\/mmatsuura.com\/bloge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/80"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmatsuura.com\/bloge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmatsuura.com\/bloge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmatsuura.com\/bloge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}