Yesterday, Tokyo woke up to their first November snow in over 50 years. The last time the first snowfall, called hatsuyuki (初雪) occurred in November was in 1962. But at the time it didn’t even stick. So if you go back to the first accumulation of snow, Tokyo truly hasn’t seen anything like this since records began in 1875. So for a city with typically dry winters, there was understandably a lot of flurry and frenzy in the air.

So we thought it would be fun to take a look at some ukiyo-e that illustrate what snowfall was like in Edo-period Japan (1603-1868).