Niseko Now: Tuesday 19th March 2013
- Mar 19, 2013
- 3 min read
Independent snow and weather reporting from the Niseko region of Hokkaido
New snowfall at base 0cm
Snowfall at base this season 1403cm
Weather overview Cloud, light rain
Wind
Varied
Temperature 3C base / 1C top
Visibility Varied
Posted at 8:42am on Tuesday 19th March 2013 This is an archived report. The latest Niseko Now report can be found here
And yes, rain happened. This morning it is raining lightly and it's a rather warm 5 degrees here in Hirafu village area.
As you might expect, no new snow to report.
Resorts on the mountain are reporting conditions varying from foggy to sleet and light snow up top this morning.
Poor visibility up top along with moderate to strong winds is preventing some lifts to operate this morning again. It's mostly top lifts and the gondolas at Niseko Annupuri and Niseko Village that are affected.
Wind has been mentioned a fair deal this season in these reports and one comment coming in to SnowJapan was whether that should be mentioned or not. My take on this - and that of SnowJapan - is that... of course it should! Lifts moving or not is a rather important piece of info. It may not be fun having to report things like that, but we're certainly not going to conveniently ignore it. If winds are an issue, we'll report it here. Of course, weather conditions can change at any time during a day and we highly recommend that people check with the resorts for all the latest updates during a day.
Anyway, snow conditions are generally rather hard, icy... and fast!
Avalanche Information
Niseko base 6am: 3C, snow melt, light winds. Annupuri peak: -0.5C, above freezing to 800m overnight. Coastal data: wind W13m/s, 0.8m waves, pressure 997hPa.
Peak gates expected to open when fog lifts. However if westerly winds increase there is high possibility lift operation will be suspended. Please respect ski patrols decisions. Dont duck ropes, regardless of location. Once one person ducks a rope others will follow increasing the chances of an accident.
The mountain is changing to spring conditions, the risk of large avalanches is increasing in the valleys. These avalanches start at around 1100m elevation. They initially trigger deep within the snow pack as full depth avalanches, which in turn trigger surface avalanches which gain speed and power as they travel down the valley bottoms. This type of avalanche is the same as the avalanche several years ago that traveled right through the lower section of the Osawa creek(half pipe).
Avoid riding in the creek bottom. Be careful of cornices breaking off and falling into cracks. Ride and traverse one by one. Have a safe day.
Niseko Now 2012-2013 season |
Data as of Tuesday 19th March 2013 Total snowfall at base so far 1403cm Number of days snowfall observed at base 100 days Most snowfall observed in 1 day 45cm (27th January) November 2012 snowfall 118cm reported on 11 days December 2012 snowfall 418cm reported on 27 days January 2013 snowfall 443cm reported on 26 days February 2013 snowfall 316cm reported on 24 days March 2013 snowfall 108cm reported on 12 days |
All snowfall data presented on this page is the snowfall measured and observed at base/town level by our reporter based in Kutchan/Niseko. 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.