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Nozawa Now: Saturday 15th December 2018

  • Dec 15, 2018
  • 2 min read

Independent snow and weather reporting from the Nozawa Onsen region of Nagano


New snowfall at base 34cm
Snowfall at base this season 78cm

Posted on Saturday 15th December 2018 This is an archived report. The latest Nozawa Now report can be found here.


A very good Saturday morning to you from Nozawa.


I have very Nozawa-like snowfall to report to you this morning.


During the day yesterday up until 3pm the resort was reporting 15-20cm of fresh mountain wide and this morning add another 13-25cm on top of that, so that's 28-45cm (bottom to top). I am measuring 34cm. Very nice.


More lifts and more courses are open from this morning too - as noted below - so there's a decent part of the mountain now open... most of the upper area (not Skyline) and part of the lower Hikage area. The two areas are not connected by skiable terrain, so if you go to the upper area you will need to get the gondola back down. For now.


It feels like winter has started and it should be a lot of fun out this morning. The snow seems forecast to ease off today and we might get some sunshine tomorrow.


Hope some of you can be here to enjoy it.


I'm off out!


Fresh snowfall recorded by resort (since yesterday):


- Yamabiko (1407m): 45cm

- Uenotaira (1230m): 33cm

- Hikage (660m): 33cm

- Nagasaka (615m): 33cm

- Karasawa (563m): 29cm


Lifts operations starting from 8:30am:


- Nagasaka Gondola

- Hikage Gondola

- Yamabiko Four Lift

- Yamabiko Number 2 Four Lift

- Skyline connecting pair lift

- Yunomine pair lift

- Uenotaira Four Lift

- Hikage Four lift

- Shinyu pair lift

- Nagasaka triple lift

- Yu Road


Open courses:


- Yamabiko A

- Yamabiko C

- Yamabiko B

- Yamabiko D

- Yamabiko E

- Uenotaira

- Kokenashi

- Paradise

- Bunabayashi (to mid-station)

- Rinkan

- Hikage (southern area)


Official snow depth numbers:


- Yamabiko (1407m): 80cm

- Uenotaira (1230m): 75cm

- Hikage (660m): 45cm

- Nagasaka (615m): 40cm

- Karasawa (563m): 30cm



Nozawa Now 2018-2019 season

Data as of Saturday 15th December 2018 Total snowfall at base 78cm Number of days snowfall observed at base 6 days Most snowfall observed in 1 day 34cm (15th December) November 2018 snowfall 2cm reported on 1 day December 2018 snowfall 76cm 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 Nozawa Onsen. 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.


SnowJapan is an entirely independent operation. Our daily reports are not posted on behalf of ski areas or any other business or organisation. Since first going online in 1999, the integrity of this website has always been our top priority, and it is something we are not prepared to compromise. All content is carefully created and written by humans who share a passion for the subject and what SnowJapan stands for.



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