Nozawa Now: Thursday 21st January 2016
- Jan 21, 2016
- 3 min read
Independent snow and weather reporting from the Nozawa Onsen region of Nagano
New snowfall at base 18cm
Snowfall at base this season 178cm
Posted on Thursday 21st January 2016 This is an archived report. The latest Nozawa Now report can be found here.
It is a good morning in Nozawa.
New snowfall to report - up to 35cm of it on the upper slopes reported by the resort since yesterday morning - less wind and more of the mountain open.
Thanks to the fresh snowfall, Skyline is now open along with a number of other courses that were not open.
The snow depth numbers are still very low to what we are used to of course. On this day last year the official snow depth on the upper Yamabiko area was 400cm (compared with 135cm today) and on the lower Karasawa area it was 220cm (compared with 50cm today). That's actually a pretty stark contrast isn't it, even considering that last season we enjoyed a really great start.
It's the fresh snow on base that is important to us in the here and now, though with much less of a base that may well impact the length of the season. So - as if it needs saying! - we want as much snow as possible to try and catch up to the norm.
The forecast is for light snow at times today and tomorrow to be followed by potentially heavy snowfall over the weekend, in particular on Sunday. Onegai shimasu.
For the moment though, there were lots of people eager to get up on the first lifts this morning and I think I will go and join them having fun in this fresh snow.
Official snow depths:
Yamabiko: 135cm
Uenotaira: 110cm
Hikage: 70cm
Nagasaka: 65cm
Karasawa: 50cm
New snowfall as reported by the resort since yesterday morning:
Yamabiko: 35cm
Uenotaira: 30cm
Hikage: 20cm
Nagasaka: 20cm
Karasawa: 20cm
All lifts now planned to be operating except:
- Yunomine pair*
- Mizunashi triple*
- Challenge pair*
- Utopia pair*
- Kandahar pair
- Hikage Number 2 pair B line*
(Lifts marked * are usually operating on weekends and holidays)
The following courses are not currently open:
- Paradise connection
- Challenge 39
- Hikage no kabe
- Grand Prix
- Jumping
- Hachiman
- Mukoubayashi
- Kandahar West
- Kandahar East
Nozawa Now 2015-2016 season |
Data as of Thursday 21st January 2016 Total snowfall at base 178cm Number of days snowfall observed at base 23 days Most snowfall observed in 1 day 32cm (29th December) November 2015 snowfall 3cm reported on 1 day December 2015 snowfall 100cm reported on 9 days January 2016 snowfall 75cm reported on 13 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.