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Nozawa Now: Thursday 2nd January 2020

  • Jan 2, 2020
  • 3 min read

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


New snowfall at base 6cm
Snowfall at base this season 53cm

Posted on Thursday 2nd January 2020 This is an archived report. The latest Nozawa Now report can be found here.


More snow to report this morning. Not huge numbers, but the resort is reporting 20cm of fresh on the upper slopes of the mountain which is decent; it is more like 5cm down at base. There's not much of a wind and visibility is fairly decent at the time of writing - just a white/grey palette as snow continues to fall.


The snow of the last few days is helping the resort open up more and now all but 4 lifts are operating. More of the lower courses are now also open including Rinkan, Utopia, Challenge and part of Schneider. This all means that you can now ski or board back down to base without having to get a gondola back down.


Note that the Skyline downhill course side of the resort is not yet open; the Karasawa pair lift is operating and the Kitsune course is open, though it is as a way of getting over to the Nagasaka area and gondola station.


Forecast is still looking promising over the coming days. Light snowfall is due today, heavier snow is due over the period from tomorrow night through Sunday.


Fresh snowfall recorded by resort since yesterday:

- Yamabiko (1407m): 20cm

- Uenotaira (1230m): 10cm

- Hikage (660m): 5cm

- Nagasaka (615m): 5cm

- Karasawa (563m): -cm


Official snow depth numbers (reported by resort):


- Yamabiko (1407m): 80cm

- Uenotaira (1230m): 60cm

- Hikage (660m): 30cm

- Nagasaka (615m): 30cm

- Karasawa (563m): -cm


All lifts normally operating apart from these lifts:


- Utopia pair

- Kandahar pair

- Nagasaka four

- Kawazawa pair


These courses normally plan to be open:


- Yamabiko A B C D E

- Kogenashi A B

- Uenotaira

- Yunomine A B

- Mizunashi A B

- Bunabayashi

- Challenge

- Utopia B

- Hikage

- Rinkan

- Kumataka (as a connecting course to the Nagasaka gondola station)

- Kitsune

- Ushikubi

- Nagasaka lower (as a connecting course)



Nozawa Now 2019-2020 season

Data as of Thursday 2nd January 2020 Total snowfall at base 53cm Number of days snowfall observed at base 9 days Most snowfall observed in 1 day 20cm (28th December) November 2019 snowfall 4cm reported on 2 days December 2019 snowfall 33cm reported on 5 days January 2020 snowfall 16cm reported on 2 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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