Madarao Now: Monday 9th January 2017
- Jan 9, 2017
- 6 min read
Updated: Sep 4, 2025
Independent snow and weather reporting from the Madarao region of Nagano
New snowfall at base 4cm
Snowfall at base this season 254cm
Weather overview Foggy
Wind Light
Temperature -
Visibility Poor but improving
Posted on Monday 9th January 2017 This is an archived report. The latest Madarao Now report can be found here.
Good morning from Madarao.
A bit of fresh snow on the ground this morning but not much to see as there has been thick fog around. It has eased off a bit over the last hour or so and so there's improved visibility at the moment.
The forecast remains very positive for a very snowy week ahead. I think we can officially get very excited.
It looks like the Kamoshika run is closed this morning (not sure why) but with all the snow that the forecast is promising over the coming week, all of those tree runs should be in prime conditions come next weekend.
--------------------------------------
A message from SnowJapan to everyone reading the Now reports
Please do take a few moments to read this. Thank you.
This message is being posted on all the daily Now pages on SnowJapan today. It does not apply to any one report in particular - we just wanted everyone reading our reports to see it.
Firstly, a very Happy New Year to everyone. And thank you for using SnowJapan and reading our reports. We are always really excited to see how many people read them every day; it’s in the tens of thousands of people. We hope you like them, and are enjoying the new content we developed for this season.
We’re even more excited when it snows.
And we can hardly contain ourselves when it snows like crazy. That is what us long-term residents of Japan consider to be the norm here.
Continuing on from last season, the first part of this winter season in Japan has obviously not been classic in terms of snowfall – far from it in many regions - but we are still very hopeful that the Nihon-rashii (Japan-like) heavy and consistent snowfall will arrive.
When it happens, it really is truly something to be in awe of.
With such a large number of people reading our website and daily reports - effectively using them as the main guide on how the Japan winter season is shaping up - we take that responsibility very seriously. The integrity of our reports is extremely important to us. We need them to always be up-front, truthful and not to shy away from the truth.
We advise the people who post the reports that it is fine to get really excited about excellent conditions, but at the same time it is essential to also report things that are less exciting. Like rain. Or a lack of snow. Or poor snow conditions.
Such reporting is not ‘being negative’. It’s reporting the truth even if none of us particularly like it. Whatever is happening, that is what should be in the reports.
One of the things that makes SnowJapan unique is the fact that we are not here to convince you to visit any one region of Japan. We’re not here to ask you to book accommodation, or to join tours, or to take ski lessons. We’re not asking you to buy anything either. Rather, we are here to provide independent and correct information from around Japan - free from the inevitable pressures of having to sell and market specific services.
Unfortunately, when snow conditions are less than perfect some people do take issue with our position regarding reports. Sadly, it is a fact that there are some folk out there who would prefer that true conditions not be known - they would prefer people to believe snow conditions are always close to what the marketing blurb says, whatever the actual reality is. At times, we have been asked by businesses to ‘avoid mentioning the rain’ and to ‘sugar-coat the conditions’, as well as receiving more forceful requests that border on demands.
(Important note: We’re not implying that most people are like that – far from it).
Surely anyone visiting a ski resort would much prefer an honest report over something that reads like a brochure? Even if it means talking about things that might not paint a perfect picture.
(Which would you prefer?)
Anyway, we just want to assure our readers that even with increasing pressure to sometimes do otherwise, we have no intention of changing the way we do things.
Just a few further related points while we are here.
Each regional report is written by a different person and so it is natural that each has its own personality or character. Some of the reports are longer than others; some are shorter; some are more humorous; some cover one ski resort; some cover a wider region.
Posting a report every single day - day in and day out, without a day off, for over five months - is a considerable commitment and a real responsibility. If a report appears later than usual, or a report is missed, or is shorter than usual, etc… we’re sorry, but sometimes it might happen. The people posting the reports are indeed real humans with their own lives, and sometimes circumstance might get in the way. (If a report is missed we’ll try to post a backdated report - when possible and especially when there was snowfall).
We’re not claiming that our reports are perfect, but we do what we can to try and provide the best reports that we can.
We are happy to pass on any comments to our reporters, but please understand that it is not possible for them to respond to specific questions and comments. We already ask enough of them every day. All (well, almost all, see below) feedback is welcome. It does not have to be positive. We have long been very aware that we will never be able to provide something that satisfies everyone, but we are always keen to hear on how people feel we can further improve things.
It’s always very nice to hear from people who are reading the reports and just want to say hi and pass on some friendly comments as well.
Please note:
* We’re not going to enter into discussions with people contesting the accuracy of how much snow we report has fallen. Stuff like “It was 23cm, not 18cm!!!!!!”. If you feel something in our reports is wildly off the mark, please do let us know and we will certainly look into it. But hopefully that won’t happen because we do keep an eye on the numbers and we also trust our reporters, their consistency and their integrity in reporting.
* If you are feeling the urge to send us an aggressive or demanding email, before doing so please remember… our service is a free service – and one that a lot of people put a lot of effort into every day throughout the year. As a rule, we generally ignore anything aggressive or demanding anyway.
And if you haven’t already read it, here is our main ‘About the daily Now reports on SnowJapan’ information page, so please do take a look:
About our daily reports
I’d like to end this post by perhaps stating the obvious in that of course we absolutely love snow and Japan. It’s why SnowJapan was created in the first place back in 1999 and remains the same now. And it is why a few of us literally put our lives into constantly improving it and moving forward.
We want nothing better than to be able to report consistent and large amounts of snowfall falling on the Japanese mountains with excellent conditions everywhere.
But we’ll only report it when it happens!
Here’s to a fine rest of the season.
Thank you for reading.
Madarao Now 2016-2017 season |
Data as of Monday 9th January 2017 Total snowfall at base 254cm Number of days snowfall observed at base 23 days Most snowfall observed in 1 day 48cm (on 30th December) November 2016 snowfall 9cm reported on 4 days December 2016 snowfall 211cm reported on 14 days January 2017 snowfall 34cm reported on 5 days |
All snowfall data presented on this page is the snowfall measured and observed at base/town level by our reporter based in Madarao. 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.