Niseko Now: Wednesday 5th December 2012
- Dec 5, 2012
- 2 min read
Independent snow and weather reporting from the Niseko region of Hokkaido
New snowfall at base 10cm
Snowfall at base this season 165cm
Weather overview Snow, wind
Wind
Strong
Temperature -3C base / -7C top
Visibility Generally poor
Posted at 9:13am on Wednesday 5th December 2012 This is an archived report. The latest Niseko Now report can be found here.
Yesterday was certainly not one that people will want to remember. Persistent and heavy rain was falling through the morning and that wiped some smiles off faces, as we all knew that it would be doing it's damage to the snow out there. You can see how the snow depth numbers at Hirafu in particular have been affected.
OK now on to the good news - it is snowing again this morning. Over 5cm of snow, more like 10cm in places, has fallen overnight and is currently being blown around by some strong winds this morning - and continuing to snow. It is much colder as well and currently around -3C.
The new snow is of course good news but until more falls and covers up those icy conditions left over from the rain and cold yesterday, conditions out there will be... interesting. Take care out there. One good thing to take out of this moving forward into the season is that the snowpack will hopefully have been compacted and consolidated.
Looking at the forecast, things are looking pretty wild again Thursday into Friday with strong winds and it should bring snow higher up, but again with warmer temperatures it looks like the village and lower areas will be seeing more rainfall. Back to colder and snowy conditions after that and into the weekend.
Strong winds on the mountain this morning which could affect lift operations. At Niseko Grand Hirafu, the King No3 lift is not operating at the time of writing due to winds but they hope to have that moving later. At Niseko Village the Gondola is not moving early on due to strong winds.
Niseko Now 2012-2013 season |
Data as of Wednesday 5th December 2012 Total snowfall at base so far 165cm Number of days snowfall observed at base 15 days Most snowfall observed in 1 day 25cm (2nd December) November 2012 snowfall 118cm reported on 11 days December 2012 snowfall 47cm reported on 4 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.