Furano Now: Sunday 4th January 2026
- Jan 4
- 2 min read
Independent snow and weather reporting from the Furano region of Hokkaido
New snowfall at base 12cm
Snowfall at base this season 295cm
Posted on Sunday 4th January 2026 This is an archived report. The latest Furano Now report can be found here.
Good Morning Skiers & Boarders,
The first Sunday of the New Year, and frankly I expected more locals to be hitting the slopes. Guess they're still at home enjoying the Holiday. Traditionally, the NY holiday period is Jan 1-5 in Japan. Most stores will be back to normal beginning tomorrow, and 100% will be in action starting Tuesday.
Ah yes, the snow report. First, a few reminders: Furano Now offers daily, direct on-the-ground reporting. We measure the snowfall every day from a Top Secret location near the base of the Kitanomine Gondola, and report weather conditions as we experience them. We don't report the snowfall at the summit. This is consistent for all the SnowJapan reports. This method usually does not reflect the larger amounts of snow that usually fall at higher elevations, but it is consistent, so viewers can draw valid conclusions. We don't measure in town, we don't measure at the summit, we don't measure the gnarly mid-mountain leeward snow drift. Just at the base.
Recently, due to unforeseen circumstances, your faithful Furano reporter was forced to report the snowfall from a secondary location for the last few days, which resulted in a slight under-reporting of snowfall from the normal location. Today's report includes the recent 10 cm of unreported snow. Hope that's cool with everyone.
Think Snow.
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Furano Zone: All lifts open.
Lift A: 8:30--3:20
Lift B: 9:00--3:20
Lift C: 8:30--7:30
Lift D: 8:40--3:20
Lift E: 9:00--3:20
Snow Escalator:9-12:30 & 1:30-3:30
Kitanomine Zone:
Lift F: 8:30--7:30
Lift G: 8:45--3:20
Lift H: 9:00--3:20
Lift K: 9:00--3:20
Furano Now2025-2026 season |
Data as of Sunday 4th January 2026 Total snowfall at base 295cm Number of days snowfall observed at base 30 days Most snowfall observed in 1 day 30cm (6th December) November 2025 snowfall 45cm reported on 5 days December 2025 snowfall 234cm reported on 22 days January 2026 snowfall 16cm reported on 3 days |
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.