Furano Now: Saturday 1st November 2025
- Nov 1, 2025
- 4 min read
Independent snow and weather reporting from the Furano region of Hokkaido
New snowfall at base 15cm
Snowfall at base this season 15cm
Posted on Saturday 1st November 2025 This is an archived report. The latest Furano Now report can be found here.
Hello and welcome back to Furano Now!!
Happy New Year, or at least Happy New Season to you. Are you in shape yet? Have you got new goodies to try out this year? Ready to let 'er rip?
After a record high, astoundingly hotter than normal summer here in Hokkaido, while I can hardly wait for winter, I'm just happy the heat is gone. At times, I felt like a Londoner (Ah, the heat!! It's up to 33 C again! Jeeves, bring me some sherry!)
To kick things off, Furano actually got a chunk of snow just 3 days ago. It's not going to stick around, but it was satisfying to see it falling, and to see the pure white slopes afterwards. As our beloved founder, Herr SnowJapan, likes to say, "Snow is excite." Herr SnowJapan has also instructed me to report this early season precipitation, despite it melting away. It's still part of the yearly weather pattern. This year is a La Nina year, so "statistically speaking", we should have "more than average snowfall" in Central Hokkaido. Now that Billy Gates has given up on Climate Change, let's hope the remaining players in the weather game are accurate.
Perhaps the biggest news this pre-season was the October 22 announcement by the Prince Hotel chain that Furano Ski Resort has been added to the Ikon pass for the 2025-26 ski season. You Ikon folks can now ski up to 7 days per season in Furano. This should bring more visitors to town, so will be good for the local restaurants and accommodation. Let's hope the Prince uses any increased revenue for capital improvements for the resort. One can always hope. As Andy Dufresne said, "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things." As winter sports enthusiasts, we are full of hope, always hoping for new snow, lots of snow, and then more specifically, tons of super light powder. Yes, hope is a good thing.
And now we come to the huge "Elefant im Raum" (don't know why I'm in German mode today): The infamous Furano Zone 1 Quad Chair. Questions swirl online regarding its status, with many understandably wary to book a vacation to Furano if the darn thing isn't fixed. For those who missed the excitement last year, here is a quick recap: In early January, the 1 Quad suffered what would be politely explained as Major Mechanical Failure. Apparently, the horizontal wheel thingy at the top of the lift, which I now know is called the Return Bullwheel, cracked. Hmmm, not good. As you can surmise, these are not laying around in the warehouse, especially for a 25-30 year old lift. So the lift closed for the season, while a new Return Bullwheel was manufactured. This caused surprising knock-on effects for the entire mountain. Suddenly the adjacent Ropeway lines became obscene, so folks stayed in other parts of the mountain, causing lines in the Kitanomine Zone to also swell. All because one of the base access lifts, which I've never noticed to be that busy, failed.
Since I am secretly employed by the FIA (Furano Intelligence Agency), over the summer I gathered raw intel from those in Lift Ops whenever I ran into them. The consistent response was positive and affirming that everything was proceeding nicely, and no major obstacles (or heaven forbid, new problems) had reared their ugly heads. This is significant, because if things are not going well, Japanese react very uncomfortably to these sorts of inquiries. Like visibly squirm, and then say something vague like, "It's a little difficult, but probably OK." So, imagine my surprise when it came to my attention that the Prince had not put out a press release regarding the 1 Quad status. You'd think they would have been all over that black eye, and totally be rushing to assure customers for the upcoming season. You'd think. But then you'd be wrong. So now they've released a typically Japanese vague statement that all should be OK by the normally scheduled start date in late December. Not exactly confidence-inspiring, but it's just how they express themselves. I'm relying on my agents in place and their positive reports. The Prince has every incentive to get this thing fixed, so if they don't, they are even more obtuse than I imagined.
So, tune up the espresso machine, order your premium hot cocoa, do those balance drills, start working out, get the boards out and sharpen up the edges, watch a few ski vids, and otherwise get yourself ready to rock-n-roll "for healthy lifestyle." I'll be updating the snowfall here as it happens until the season opens (official date: Nov 30, Furano Zone only).
Think snow.
Furano Now2025-2026 season |
Data as of 1st November 2025 Total snowfall at base 15cm Number of days snowfall observed at base 1 day Most snowfall observed in 1 day 15cm (1st November) November 2025 snowfall 15cm reported on 1 day |
All snowfall data presented on this page is the snowfall measured and observed at base/town level by our reporter based in Furano. The 'new snowfall' number represents the amount of snow measured since the previous report. All opinions are those of the individual reporters. Information regarding ski area operations is manually checked every morning and is believed to be correct at the time of the report.