Trend of the East Saghalien Current with low temperature and low salinity has important effects on the formation of sea ice and the southward drifting of pack ice early in the sea ice season over the western part of the Okhotsk Sea. It is said that the East Saghalien Current is closely connected with the flow of the Amur River which gets supply from the precipitation of the summer monsoon.
In consideration of these relations, the precipitation at Blagoveshchensk and Nikolaevsk na Amure in the summer season, the date of the first pack ice appearance along the east coast of Saghalien, the date of the freezing of sea water at Cape Elizabeth, and the date of sudden drop in sea water density at the coast of Mombetsu were examined to evaluate their correlations, but there were little significant correlations.
From this result it is concluded that point rainfall cannot represent the flux of the Amur River and that the behavior of the East Saghalien Current and the formation of sea ice are largely influenced by meteorological conditions such as air temperature and wind.

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Recently, many houses built in heavy snow districts have been roofed with galvanized iron sheets which have less friction with snow cover on them. It is convenient that the snow cover on the roofs falls down naturally but its sudden falling is very dangerous. In spite of a wide use of the roof, the condition of the sliding down of the snow on the galvanized iron roof have not as yet been fully investigated.
Since 1974, the snow cover on galvanized iron roofs of 76 houses and its sliding down have been observed in Nagaoka city, Tokamachi city and Tsunan town, Niigata prefecture.
Following results were obtained from the observation.
(1) A large amount of snow was accumulated on the roof, during heavy snow periods from January 9, 1975 to January 13 and from January 18, 1976 to January 24 in the Niigata district. The amount of the snow did not depend upon the gradient of the roof and this leads us to the conclusion that the freezing between the roof surface and snow cover causes such a large amount of snow accumulation on the roof.
(2) The sudden sliding of the snow cover occured when the air temperature rose after the heavy snows. In a certain case, the snow fell 6 m far from a house.
(3) The coefficient of the friction between the roof surface and the snow cover was estimated from the sudden falling down of the snow cover occured in Tokamachi city and its value is 0.1.

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