
Updates & Reports: Our plans for the 2020-2021 winter season
Updating our ski area information [September-December] The process of updating our all-Japan ski area information on SnowJapan has started. In a normal year... Our updating work usually takes us 3+ months, from September through until December. This year... We have only just started working on updates for the upcoming season, so we have not yet delved deep. However, we get the feeling that this year information gathering is going to be more complicated than usual. And perhaps generally later than usual, as ski areas wait on updates to general/travel circumstances. There is also probably going to be lots of ‘News’. In addition to updating information on all the ski area pages within SnowJapan, we also plan to separately post various news items on the site. That should start around early October. Every year... As we check and update information, we are as careful and thorough as possible. Our intention is to bring you correct, reliable, and up-to-date information. We are not here to bring you shiny marketing messages or promotional press releases. The process of carefully checking and updating information on about 500 ski areas in multiple stages takes a lot of time. The work is all manual and we only use original Japanese sources. Updates on our site may seem to be somewhat random… …and in some ways, they are! That is because we keep checking, re-checking and updating as we find relevant information. Updates for each ski area will probably be done in stages, as more information becomes available. This work is ongoing and information is updated gradually (it doesn't all appear at once). We try to update information for larger, more well-known ski areas as early in the process as possible. We cannot update the information on SnowJapan if we do not have confirmation of information from original sources. In our experience over the years, many ski areas around Japan do not update their own websites until November (or even December!) Expect most visible updates to appear on SnowJapan around the period late-October through late-November. Just so it's clear... no-one is telling us what to do. It's all us - checking, updating, checking and updating manually. Gambarimasu...!
'Now' daily reports [during the winter season] We intend to publish as many of our popular ‘Now’ daily reports as possible through the 2020-2021 winter season. However we cannot yet confirm full details… because we do not know ourselves what is going to be possible. For a ‘Now’ daily report section to be possible, we need our trusted reporters to be available, on location, and committed to posting reports every day of the season. There is no 'mid' setting - it's either a full proper report every day or no report. Due to various circumstances beyond our control, that may well not be possible for some of our usual reports this year. But we will certainly do what we can!
Daily snow depth data [during the winter season] The official daily snow depth data for ski areas throughout Japan should be updating as normal throughout the winter season. --------------------------------- So keep an eye on the site for updates over the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, if the subject of ski areas from the past sounds interesting to you, be sure to check out the new SnowJapanHistory website here: www.snowjapanhistory.com. SnowJapanHistory is a personal project of the creator of SnowJapan. Currently the website introduces 114 historic ski areas around Japan and more are being added each week. That’s all for now. Stay safe and take care.