Niseko Now: Sunday 25th January 2015
- Jan 25, 2015
- 4 min read
Independent snow and weather reporting from the Niseko region of Hokkaido
New snowfall at base 5cm
Snowfall at base this season 790cm
Posted on Sunday 25th January 2015 This is an archived report. The latest Niseko Now report can be found here
Hello and good morning from Niseko.
It's a busy Sunday morning out there already, but weather-wise a calm start to the day.
Up above it's a mix of cloud and blue sky, and I can see the sun too just now but it's playing a bit of hide and seek behind the clouds. Just a bit of new snowfall to add this morning, around 5cm with up to 15cm on mountain being reported.
Don't know about you, but I'm all for a bumper 40-50cm of beautiful dry light new snowfall kind of day. Next one of those please... this week would be great! Onegai shimasu.
All resorts and lifts are open as planned and it looks like all the gates should be open this morning as well. Let's Sunday!
On a more serious note, please be sure to check out the Avalanche report this morning (below)... found a few things mentioned in there interesting.
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One change to the report that I want to make a note of.
Until now, for the 'official snow depth' number on the report, we have been making a note of the 'lower' number from Hirafu (I mean the 'Current snow' number that you can see towards the top right of this page).
It's not actually really that important as within every single report that I put up here I do make a clear note of all of the upper/lower snow depth numbers for each resort area, but we do think that it is probably better to change it to the upper number.
The upper number is also the number that is shown on the resort pages of our site, so it will now tie in with that.
So from today that is what we'll be using - the official 'upper' snow depth number at Niseko Grand Hirafu.
A few people mentioned this to us in comments sent in during the Prize Draw (thank you), so I hope this will meet with general approval. Sorry for the mid-season change.
* Sadly the jump from 145cm to 360cm does not mean that we have suddenly got 215cm of fresh snowfall overnight. I might even dust off the word 'epic' (with a capital 'E') if that happened!
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Resort specific news at time of writing - subject to change during the day
Niseko Grand Hirafu:
Looks set to open as planned this morning.
'Early Morning' lift available daily until 1st February (for 500 yen, Ace Quad Number 2 lift from 8am until 8:20am).
Niseko Hanazono:
Looks set to open as planned this morning.
Niseko Village:
Looks set to open as planned this morning.
'Early Morning Gondola' available Saturdays and Sundays until February 8th (for 1300 yen, Gondola open from 7:30am until 8:30am).
Niseko Annupuri:
Looks set to open as planned this morning.
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Niseko Avalanche Report
Niseko base 6am: -5C, light dusts in the last 12 hours. Moiwa 800m: mild wind and 10cm of new snow. Annupuri 1150m: mild wind, 15cm of snowfall. 1000m snowpack 250cm. Hirafu ridge: mild wind, light snowfall, -11C. Coastal data: Benkei cape NW6m/s, Kamui cape WNW3m/s, 1026hPa, 0.6m waves.
A calm morning as a high-pressure system is dominating the area. The snowdrifts are stable and the avalanche risk is low. Beware of collapsing cornices. All gates will open from the morning. The snow is in pretty good shape.
Intruders to Haru-no-Taki off-limits area never seem to decrease. Everyone should realize that the freedom to ride out of bounds in Niseko is protected in exchange of having those strictly off-limits areas closed at all time. The gate system would fail if people cannot respect the Rules and end up in closure of all gates and restriction of all out of bounds riding.
Whoever violating the off-limits areas will be banned from using all resort facilities. Haru-no-Taki may eventually open in the future, but we strongly demand everybody to respect the Rules until then. This area is a ski resort and the Rules exist to protect the freedom of out of bounds riding and the minimum safety of all resort users.
Niseko Now 2014-2015 season |
Data as of Sunday 25th January 2015 Total snowfall at base so far 790cm Number of days snowfall observed at base 50 days Most snowfall observed in 1 day 45cm (15th and 26th December) November 2014 snowfall 30cm reported on 5 days December 2014 snowfall 519cm reported on 25 days January 2015 snowfall 241cm reported on 20 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.