From January 11th to 12th, 2022, there was record-breaking snowfall in the Tokachi region of Japan’s Hokkaido prefecture. In some areas, there was up to 60cm of snow on the ground accumulated overnight.

Japanese Twitter user Hajime Kondo (＠hajimenokondo) recently discovered a rare natural occurrence caused by the heavy snowfall, and it really shows how icy things got up north in Japan recently!

”A road sign shedding its skin???”

After last week’s super snow storm of 60cm that happened overnight in Tokachi, Kondo from the local town of Memuro took a photo of a super rare sight of “Yuki himo (Snow string)”.

It is as if the road sign is shedding its skin. This phenomenon is called a snow string, which happens when the snow on an object, such as electric wires, slides off as a string.

The snow accumulated on the road sign from the snowstorm gradually slid off of it as time passed while retaining its shape, and ended up like a snake shedding its skin.

This rare sight is more commonly seen on tree branches, hand-rails, or a ditch. But seeing it on the road sign was so rare that many people left surprised comments.

“Yuki himo” happens only when all the right weather conditions overlap. You could say this is an art piece created by nature!