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New Snow (Resort): 2cm (Yamabiko)
New Snow (Village): 0cm
Weather: Cloudy and cold, occasional light snow.
Snow Depth: 195cm (Yamabiko)
Outlook: Rain and snow over night.
Open Areas: The bottom half of the mountain has been badly affected by recent weather and slopes are beginning to close.

Yesterday evening heavy snow fell over the resort and village, washing away large patches on the bottom slopes and depleting snow depths further up the mountain. At some point the temperatures dropped drastically and it snowed a little, so conditions were textbook dust on crust. Temperatures stayed low during the day and there was a biting wind blowing.

The forecast for the second half of this week looks really great. Nice cold temperatures and reasonable snow is expected. Could be one last cold blast for the season.

New Snow (Resort): 0cm (Yamabiko)
New Snow (Village): 0cm
Weather: Cloudy, light rain
Snow Depth: 210cm (Yamabiko)
Outlook: Rain and snow over night.
Open Areas: The bottom half of the mountain has been badly affected by recent weather and slopes are beginneing to close.

Strong winds kept both gondolas closed today. Heavy rain overnight and warm winds have had a big effect on the snow, with the bottom half of the mountain looking very patchy and many slopes are now completely unskiable. These include – All the steeps on the bottom half of the mountain except challenge are now closed, as is Karasawa. We are getting towards the end of March so this is not too out of the ordinary, and Yamabiko, Uenotaira, Paradise and the Yunomine/Mizunashi area down to the Nagasaka Gondola mid station still have complete cover. The rain and sun has actually improved conditions, instead of being sticky it is now slushy.

The temperature in the village was up around the mid teens today. Temperatures are expected to drop over night and we will have more precipitation overnight and tomorrow, rain in the village, rain turning to snow at the top of the mountain.

New Snow (Resort): 0cm (Yamabiko)
New Snow (Village): 0cm
Weather: Rain/Sleet/Snow
Snow Depth: 220cm (Yamabiko)
Outlook: Fine tomorrow followed by cooling temperatures with rain turning into snow next week.
Open Areas: The bottom half of Skyline is now closed, along with all the steeps on the bottom half of the mountain apart from Challenge and Gran Prix.

It is a grey old public holiday here in Nozawa at the moment. Visibility is next to zero on the top two thirds of the mountain and we have had on and off precipitation all day long. Nothing to make a dramatic difference in snow quality, but hopefully it will go some way to covering that horrible yellow sand.

This weekend is the last long weekend of the season, and likely to be the last time we will see big queues for the gondola until next year.

Early next week we have some good cold weather and snow forecast to come through.

New Snow (Resort): 0cm (Yamabiko)
New Snow (Village): 0cm
Weather: Fine
Snow Depth: 240cm (Yamabiko)
Outlook: Warm temperatures throughout the week, light snow tomorrow evening.
Open Areas: The bottom half of Skyline is now closed, along with all the steeps on the bottom half of the mountain apart from Challenge and Gran Prix.

The only way to describe the snow condition at the moment in Nozawa is absolute rubbish. The consistency of the snow is like a mix between concrete and glue. Weatherwise it was a beautiful day on the mountain, nice to go up and enjoy the views and maybe a picnic.

The poor snow condition at the moment is due to the heavy snow that fell yesterday mixed in with the yellow sand which blew in. I think for the snow to recover we either need some new stuff to fall on top (of course fresh snow would be much better), or for the mountain to go through freeze thaw a couple of times (which would make it icy/slushy)

The forecast has some snow tomorrow night for the top of the mountain. Next week there are a couple of fronts expected to come through, if temperatures drop far enough we could be in for some decent snow.

The stick shows that snow levels are holding up quite well in March 2009. Whilst this season still lags well behind previous years, we are over half way through March and snow levels have not really dropped since the peak of the season. It feels very springy in the village at the moment, I would expect to see it start dropping from now on.

Skiing in style

New Snow (Resort): 20cm (Yamabiko)
New Snow (Village): 0cm
Weather: Fine
Snow Depth: 250cm (Yamabiko)
Outlook: Warm temperatures throughout the week.
Open Areas: The bottom half of Skyline is now closed, along with all the steeps on the bottom half of the mountain apart from Challenge and Gran Prix.

I was woken up this morning by very heavy rain at about 6am. Around 8am this turned to sleet for a few moments and there were some bursts of very loud thunder and lightening. Very heavy snow fell at the top of the mountain, which delayed the opening of the Yamabiko lifts for 30 minutes. The snow on Yamabiko was around boot deep, but very sticky.  It was so slow that it was actually very difficult to keep momentum going forward.

Yellow sand blown over from the Gobi Desert

There was a 2-3 cm layer brown-yellow tinged snow which probably had an effect on things – this was due to the “Kosa” or yellow sand which gets blown over from the deserts of Mongolia and China. It was really very noticable on the snow today – probably the worst I have ever seen it.

In the forecast we have a couple of very warm days ahead, followed by some showers and light snow.