Myoko Now: Monday 19th November 2018
- Nov 19, 2018
- 3 min read
Independent snow and weather reporting from the Myoko region of Niigata
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Posted on Monday 19th November 2018 This is an archived report. The latest Myoko Now report can be found here.
One month to go to the official opening, a touch of snow on the peak, so time, I think, for a pre-report on the 2018-2019 season.
Actually, it's a little less than a month for most of the resorts: Akakan on 12/15, Akakura Onsen on 12/12, Ikenotaira on 12/16, Suginohara and Seki Onsen on 12/22. I would not plan a vacation based on those dates, though; there have been a lot of years where we really wonder if we're going to have a white Christmas or not. While it almost always turns out that we get a merry dusting of white, the conditions on the hill can be a little thin. Still more fun than scraping along on artificial snow, but something to keep in mind. I actually heard about some guests who wanted to do some backcountry touring around Christmas; that's not going to happen (remember that this is almost a rain forest area in summer; takes a good dump of snow to push down the saplings and cover the grape vines).
Since we're talking rainforest, it was a wet last part of the summer here. Hot and dry to start the summer, then lots of rain. Akakan has been running the gondola in summer, which is a nice thing to do here - get up higher, enjoy a lunch on the mountain, take a hike through the buna (beech) forests. But the numbers were down because it was pretty wet for the main part of the tourism season. The gondola also serves as one of the best ways for climbing Mt. Myoko, as the route is shorter than from Tsubame Onsen to the north.
No major changes at the resorts, as all the owners have remained the same with no big changes to infrastructure. We'd like to hear more from the newest member of the community, Lotte Arai, as there just isn't a lot of communication to the community. The people who did go during the season said they had the place to themselves, and a lot of the local schools extended their season by heading over to Arai.
For the moment it's very un-wintery. We often get one big dump of wet, heavy snow about this time of year which brings down trees and incites panic in all those who haven't changed to snow tires, but it could be a while for that. A little bit might be falling higher up over the next week, but it doesn't look like it will come down to base level.
So that's where we are. Quiet, fall colors gone, not as grim as some Novembers can be and really ready for the snow to fall (my snow tires are on).
Myoko Now 2018-2019 season |
Data as of Monday 19th November 2018 Total snowfall at base so far 0cm Number of days snowfall observed at base 0 days Most snowfall observed in 1 day 0cm November 2018 snowfall 0cm |
All snowfall data presented on this page is the snowfall measured and observed at base/town level by our reporter based in Myoko. 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.