Mount Fuji, Japan’s tallest mountain, regained its iconic snow-capped peak today after a record-long period in which its peak remained bare.

On October 29, its summit broke a record: the first snow-free record in 130 years, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

Staff at the local Meteorological Office in Kofu, which has been announcing Mount Fuji’s first snowfall every year since records began in 1894, spotted some snow near the 3,776-metre peak on the mountain, which is also an active volcano, today in the morning, as he announced.

Fuji’s “first snowfall” is defined as the point where all or part of the mountain is covered with snow, visible from the Kofu observatory for the first time since summer.

In recent years, the first snowfall on Mount Fuji has been delayed, although the reasons for the phenomenon remain unclear, said Mamoru Matsumoto of the Kofu observatory.

“I feel relieved to finally see the snow. The temperature at the top of Fuji has been high since October so I was predicting quite a delay in snowfall, which made me worried,” he said.

The unusually high temperatures meant precipitation did not turn to snow in October when the average summit temperature hit a record high of 1.6 degrees Celsius, compared with the previous October when the average temperature was -2, official data showed.

Japan’s hottest summer this year pushed the national average temperature from June to August 1.76 degrees Celsius higher than usual.