Thanks Kevin, that is what I figured. Here in Tokyo it snows, but never much over a few inches, I know if we had 10" of snow here, lots of houses, garages etc would fall in. We also are not built for snow, as we have no where to put it, if you shoveled up even 6" of snow, the roads would be single lane, and so would the sidewalks.
When ever we head out of Tokyo and got to the mountains etc, I always comment to my wife about the amount of snow that an area gets, she would always just say "oh yeah, really......
" but once we were in an area that to me looked like it got LOTS of snow each year and I said so, she asked how I could know that, it was the first time I'd ever been there, I told her to ask the shopkeeper we were shopping at, he said "Yeah, we can get 2' to 3' in one night.......
She wanted to know how I knew, I said "look at the roof of that house, it looked like this.........
and the front level was not at ground level, but maybe 3' above ground level, also the steps up to the front porch were steel mesh, so the snow would fall through the steps. When you see stuff like that, you know you are in snow country, also the road markers for the snow plows
Yep, I grew up in snow country.
Cheers!