Weekly outlook

Matthew Walkington is a pilot, aviation meteorology tutor, and long time weather enthusiast. He has visited Nozawa twice. He will be writing regular weather updates for Nagano Go this season.

Well winter is about to arrive in Nozawa. Shortly the Yamabiko area of the mountain will turn white and stay that way for approximately 5 months. If we are lucky even the heated roads down in the village will get a work out this week.

The forecast over the next few days is very promising and the prospect of the mountain opening as planned on Nov 22nd is now very real.

The key to significant snowfall in Nozawa is having low pressure systems sitting just west or north of Hokkaido. This will drag cold air down from russia which then picks up moisture crossing the Sea of Japan. Once this air reaches Nozawa Onsen it is laden with the snow which makes this mountain famous.

The current forecast has low pressure north of Hokkaido providing a constant  North/Northwest flow for the next 5 days. Temperatures will reduce dramatically and snow will fall!! The most significant falls will be Wednesday and Friday. Tuesday and Thursday should see lighter falls but there is not likely to be significant accumulation.

Beyond Saturday high pressure begins to move back in and the winds change to the warmer southerly direction. This shouldn’t last too long though, as the general trend over the next month will be for the sub tropical belt of high pressure to move further south allowing snow bearing low pressure systems to dominate.

So keep an eye on the webcams over the next week. Nozawa is about to transform and I can’t wait!