Japan’s tallest mountain loses its icy top covering as storm blows through eastern Japan.

Close your eyes and picture Mt. Fuji. Even if you’ve never been to Japan, odds are you can still form a mental picture of the country’s highest mountain, with its graceful curved sides, flat-topped crater, and a ring of snow around the majestic peak.

Except, right now Mt. Fuji can only claim two of those distinguishing characteristics. With the weather getting progressively colder in Japan, Mt. Fuji has been seasonably snow-topped for a while, and got its first major snowfall of the season on October 23.

▼ The view on October 26

However, a typhoon swept through eastern Japan last weekend. Warm air currents at high altitude kept overnight temperatures on Fuji’s peak above freezing even as the area was pounded with wind and rain, and the result was that all of the snow was blown or washed away.

While the amount of snow on Mt. Fuji varies throughout the year, it’s unusual for the peak to be so lacking in frozen regalia in late October.

Due to its size, meteorological conditions can vary from one face of Fuji to the next. This photo, taken in Yamanashi Prefecture’s Fujiyoshida City, for example, shows a bit of slush high on the mountain.

From other angles, though, Fuji is looking practically naked.

Luckily for all those longing to see Mt. Fuji in its most iconic form, typhoons become less and less common as we get further into fall, so it shouldn’t be long before the highest point in Japan is ringed in white once again.

Source: Livedoor News via Jin