Patterns of cloud distribution were climatologically investigated over the Sea of Japan based on the ESSA-9/NOOA satellite pictures during the 1969- 70 winter.
When cold winter monsoon prevails over the Sea from the continent, cloud formation indicates the pattern of streamlines, not homogeneous in many cases whole over the Sea, but statistically saying, N-NW winds prevail in the north while WNW-W winds in the south. The distribution of cloud cover probability by wind directions are represented in Fig. 4- 8, which are composed of observations in four districts along the Siberian and Korean coast (e. g. Fig. 2, 3). By comparing these maps, it is known that the distribution of cloud cover probability is determined by the relation between wind and coast directions.
The axes of cloudy area (Fig. 10) and cloud free area (Fig. 9) picked up from Fig. 4- 8 illustrate the pattern characteristics of detailed cloud distribution, that is, cloud free area tends to appear in the lee side of high altitude mountains, on the other hand, marked longitudinal cloud bands appear as N or NNW streamlines frequently off the east coast of Ham- Kyung Mountains. And it will be concluded that the significant orographic fratures from the Ham- Kyung Mountains to the valley of Ussurisk play an important role in the cloud distribution over the Sea of Japan.

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The author's observation on landform and crustal movements of Shonai- Mogamigawa Fan and its southwest side may be summarized as follows;
Mogamigawa Fan extends 9.5km northwestward and 7km southwestward. All the contour lines of 10m, 11m, 12m, 13m and 14m shows the elongation northwest and southeast. The average gradient of the fan surface is steeper southwestward than northeastward. These features tell us that the Mogamigawa Fan has undergone deformation.
On the other hand, the 10m contour line in Kyoden Gawa district, to the southwest of Mogamigawa Fan suggests the existence of trough in direction of northwest to southeast. In the Dewa Hill- Land, where this trough extend, there exists clear discontinuity of altitude, i. e. the south- west is 450- 500m higher than the north- east. It is safe to assume that the formation of the altitudal discontinuity due to crustal movements such as faulting and flexure and the formation of trough along Kyoden Gawa reflects the down- warping accompanied by the crustal movement. Further, the southwest part of Mogamigawa Fan, influenced by the down- warping of Kyoden Gawa's trough, sank flexure toward the trough.
Precise levelling records of benchmarks located on the north- west of the trough, indicate subsidence of 67.4mm for B. M. No. 6543 and 40.9mm for B. M. No. 654 4 during the period 1901 to 1966. The crustal movement which resulted in the trough and the flexure has continued up to now.
The resultant features of down- warping around Kyoden Gawa show a trough with the extension of 9.8km x 2- 4km, and the Kyoden Gawa flows northwestward in the trough. Further, the landform apparent with the 10m contour line along the Mogamigawa suggests a revival of erosion influenced by the upwarping around Amarume.
The Mogamigawa Fan has been modified by the wave- shaped down- warping shown as the trough and the up- warping.

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The Iinashi River rises from the granitic region in the Chugoku Mountains and flows northward into the Naka- Umi, an inland sea. It forms an alluvial plain in its lower reaches. The author analysed the grain size and mineral composition of the river bed materials on the alluvial plain. The relationship between the feature of the bed materials and the formation of the alluvial plain is discussed. The results are as follows.
The river bed materials are composed of granitic sands and gravels finer than-5.5 phi. The histograms showing the frequency distribution of the grain sizes on weight basis are divided into two groups: the No. 1- 2 group in the lower reaches and the No. 3- 10 group in the upper reaches. The former group shows nearly a unimodal distribution with its peak at around-1.5 phi. The latter group has a polymodal distribution with four peaks. On an average, a distinct “valley”in the distribution appears in the part of around -2.75 phi.
The granitic bed materials are divided into rock fragments, quartz grains and feldspar grains. The author examined their proportions according to grain sizes. As a result, the proportion of rock fragments decreases in the grain size ranges finer than -3.00 phi, whereas the proportion of quartz grains increases rapidly between -3.00 phi and -2.50 phi. It may safely be said that in the Iinashi River the bed materials composed of granitic rock fragments are unstable and easily destroyed in the grain size ranges between -3.00 phi -2.50 phi, but quartz grains remain selectively.
The Iinashi River alluvial Plain is divided into three landforms: valley plain, fan and delta. The inclintion of fan is smaller than any other fan in Japan. The reason is that the granitic bed materials are very easy to be destroyed. The inclination of delta is smaller than fan, because the bed sediments in the lowest reach are composed of sandy mineral grains.

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The C. B. D. of modern city is characterized by variegated pattern of landuse. The writer has selected five cities-Sendai, Fukushima, Morioka, Ishinomaki and Furukawa in Tohoku which range from 50, 000 to 630, 000 in population and studied comparatively the changing pattern and character of land use in the C. B. D. s according to the city size. The delimiting C. B. D. in this paper followed the detailed study of Murphy and Vance (1954).
The results are as follows.
(1) The component retail zones from the hard cores in each C. B. D. and the civic centers are located at the highest land prices. (Fig. 1- 4)
(2) In Sendai (population: 630, 000) nearly 30 per cent of the C. B. D, area is occupied by the financial and business land use, superior to retail land use. It shows about 20 per cent in Fukushima (230, 000) and Morioka (210, 000), and it approximates the retail areas which are predominant in landuse. In Ishinomaki (110, 000) and Furukawa (50, 000), the retail areas are the widest (40 per cent or over) and the office and business areas are under 10 per cent (Table 1).
(3) Land uses of some functions are altermate in locality one with another, but there are several quaters with predominant single land use. The rate of such quaters 50m×50m or over in area measures in each of office, retail and service fuctions over 60 per cent. Total area of such quaters is over 43 per cent of C. B. D. area in Sendai, 24 per cent in Fukushima and 27 per cent in Morioka. The retail area shows 28 per cent in Ishinomaki and 36 per cent in Fukushima, but the area of other functions are very low in rate (Fig. 6).

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After the heavy damage of cool summer in 1953, rice yield in Tohoku has been steadily increasing. However it dropped in 1976 to 90 in rice crop condition index suffering cool summer damage, i. e. low temperature, much rainfall and poor sunshine during August and September. The author believes that postwar change in rice cultivation aggravated the situation.
To clarify the reason of the great damage in rice crop the author investigated the area of postwar paddy field newly reclaimed.
The distribution of heavy damage roughly correspondes to rice cultivation land reclaimed during 1960's. Especially it was the most severe in Iwate prefecture. Topographical analysis indicates the correlation between altitude and damage as expected naturally.
However, detailed investigation at GOKURAKUNO settlement on the southern foot of Mt. Iwate as a typical example, revealed not only a simple correlation with altitude or low temperature, but also with the failure in adoption of proper cultivation techniques, especially in the use of cold registance rice variety and provision for raising water temperature. The rice cultivation on reclaimed land gave rise to recurrence of cool summer damage.
It looks to reflect problems inherent in postwar agriculture development of Japan: uneven distribution of regional prosperity and Tohoku's position depending on rice cultivation.

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Though rather unknown, the southwest piedmont of Mt. Bandai (Fig. 1) has heavy snow in winter and the depth of snow reaches its maximum on a spot along the road connecting hotels of a spa to the railway station (Fig. 2) which was forced to cease its function as motorway by the winter snowdrift till the beginning of 1970's.
Thereafter, in order not to close hotels, a snowplow has been used for the security of automobile traffic in snow season. On the occasion, a skillful technique has been conceived to protect the road against snow at the spot of heavy snowdrift where the construction of snowbreak or snowshed is difficult on account that the road runs through a private field.
On the field upwind the road snow is accumulated by the snowplow in two parallel dikes along it (Fig. 3). Once accumulated, the dikes prevent snow drifting on road and secure the auto- traffic for three days which are usually the longest duration of a snowfall in this region.
It is interesting that this wholly empirical technique fits both on snowfall and economic condition of this area.

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Well- developed involutions are observed on the boundary between volcanic ash and frost shattered rock fragment layers to the northeast of Mt. Takamori (1220m) in the central Kitakami Mountains. According to the radiocarbon ages (Endo 1977, Inoue 1978) of Koiwai Pumice between the two layers, the involutions were formed after 13, 000- 16, 000 y. B. P. under cold climate.

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A large solifluction lobe has been discovered on the windblown slope to the northwest of Mt. Yukikura, Hida Mountains (Fig. 1 and Photo 1). It is raised, relatively flat-topped, tongue-shaped accumulation of angular rock debris, and it is about 70 meters long, 40 meters wide and 2.5 meters thick at the toe. The peripheral scarplet of the lobe is covered with Pinus pumila community, and the top surface, gently (about 15 degrees) declining westwards, is bare and stony. The lobe has originated from the back periglacial debrismantled slope, pushed on downwards, and ridden onto the front gentle slope which is occupied by snow-patch meadow of Carex blepharicarpa·Fauna crista-galli community.

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