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New Snow (Resort): 3cm (Yamabiko)
New Snow (Village): sprinkling
Weather: Fine
Snow Depth: 185cm (Yamabiko)
Outlook: rain at the end of the week and then snow over the weekend.
Open Areas: Almost everything is open except Kurokura and Hachiman. Kandahar is closed for Nozawa Onsen Junior Ski Cup.

Today is another bluebird day with great views out to the Japan Sea and over to Myoko. A few centimetres of snow fell overnight and Yamabiko has been freshened up a little. The rest of the mountain is quite crunchy. A few more people on the mountain today compared to the average weekday, it seems there are a few school groups in town.

Today isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination: blue skies, perfect vis, empty slopes with no lift lines and a few centimetres up top makes for a very fun days skiing. However what we all hope and pray for at this time of year is knee deep pow. The forecast is looking like bringing us some unseasonal heavy rain and then a big powder dump over the weekend. Fingers crossed it does come through with a decent fall, there are a lot of powder starved skiers and boarders waiting in anticipation.

Sano San and Make Peace Lab – Secret place between Nagano on Niigata.

New Snow (Resort): 2cm
New Snow (Village): 1cm
Weather: Fine
Snow Depth: 180cm (Yamabiko)
Outlook: rain at the end of the week and then snow over the weekend.
Open Areas: Almost everything is open except Kurokura which is not too far away. Kandahar is closed for Nozawa Onsen Junior Ski Cup.

Well the promised rain did not come through as hoped, conditions on the mountain will be dust on hard pan. If you like powder the last 10 days has really been almost a complete write off.

If you are getting to Nozawa on Friday, don’t forget your umbrella – heavy rain is expected in the village. Saturday and Sunday should finally see some decent snow fall. It is really needed to freshen things up a bit.

New Snow (Resort): 0cm
New Snow (Village): 0cm
Weather: Fine
Snow Depth: 195cm (Yamabiko)
Outlook: moderate snow expected tonight.
Open Areas: Almost everything is open except Kurokura which is not too far away. Kandahar is closed for special training.

More of the same today, very icy runs and cold temperatures. The sun is out and the sky is blue at the moment, but towards Myoko and the Japan sea there are some ominous looking clouds. With a bit of luck they might make there way over towards Nozawa, and we are going to get some snow tonight.

I can’t think of much else to write so I am going to leave it at that. Happy Australia Day – Jo will be throwing a few snags on the barby at Stay bar tonight to celebrate.

It has been very un-January like in Japan recently as warm temperatures and sadly rain have affected the resorts even up in Hokkaido. The siberian high which generates the cold northwesterly winds has been missing in action lately. When it did appear around the 23rd of Jan it was so far west the northwesterlies barely affected the Korean peninsula and we missed out altogether in Japan.

The current situation has a weak low pressure system moving northeast through the sea of Japan. A small amount of snow could be expected from this as it moves through. Following this is a significant high pressure system which will bring sunny skies through until Thursday the 29th.

The long range outlook has rain turning to snow on Friday the 30th. Then a few more days of sunny skies and hopefully some moisture coming through around the 6th of Feb.

A Sunday afternoon in Nozawa after a long day’s skiing.

This little shrine is on Skyline, and I found a few enjoying the afternoon skiing and sunshine.