Nozawa Onsen Snow Report – 30/11/2009 Monday

New Snow (Resort): 5cm
New Snow (Village): 0cm
Weather: Cloudy
Snow Depth: 20cm (Yamabiko)
Outlook: Mainly dry with some scattered snow showers for the rest of the week. Possibly some good snow to fall next weekend.
Open Areas: Presently lift operations are zero. The resort will open when a sufficient base is formed, probably after the next decent snowfall.

It’s a grey old day in Nozawa Onsen. Last night it rained in the village, but on the upper reaches of the resort snow has been falling. I settled halfway down Paradise and probably added about 5-10cm up on Yamabiko.

So the wait continues for sufficient snow to start lift operations on the resort. Looking at the forecast it seems like not much is going to happen in the next 5 days. The ideal weather condition for snow in Japan is when we get a low pressure system creating a north west flow, called the East Asian Monsoon. This pretty much guarantees powder in Nozawa, so everyone is keeping an eye out for that in the forecast. It seems as though we might get that sometime over the next weekend so I am keeping my fingers crossed for first lines of the season this Sunday or on Monday next week.