Nozawa Now: Friday 30th January 2026
- Jan 30
- 2 min read
Independent snow and weather reporting from the Nozawa Onsen region of Nagano
New snowfall at base 44cm
Snowfall at base this season 584cm
Posted on Friday 30th January 2026 This is an archived report. The latest Nozawa Now report can be found here.
Good morning.
Some good snowfall again since yesterday morning and it is snowing still this morning and will probably continue into tomorrow. Perhaps we are past the peak of this particular snowy front.
I'll try not to mention too often, but I continue to be confused by the official snowfall numbers. 75cm at Nagasaka, with less up at Yamabiko and Uenotaira? It seems unlikely and I can't report that much. The JMA (Japan Meteorological Agency) measurement for the past 24 hours, location close by Karasawa, is 37cm.
The official site numbers somehow don't feel as consistently updated as they have been in the past... but, anyway, I'll post them as best I can (below).
Whatever, data aside, there's lots of good snow across the mountain and some very fine conditions to enjoy.
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Fresh snowfall since yesterday morning - daytime + overnight (reported by the ski area):
Yamabiko: 8+52cm = 60cm
Uenotaira: 12+40cm = 52cm
Hikage: ?cm
Nagasaka: 8+67cm = 75cm
Karasawa: ?cm
Official snow depth numbers (reported by the ski area):
Yamabiko: 300cm
Uenotaira: 275cm
Hikage: 190cm
Nagasaka: 195cm
Karasawa: 180cm
Scheduled lift operations:
All operating apart from Challenge pair and Utopia pair
Courses that are not available (when the ski area is operating as normal):
All open
Information on the ski area:
Nozawa Now2025-2026 season |
Data as of Friday 30th January 2026 Total snowfall at base 584cm Number of days snowfall observed at base 33 days Most snowfall observed in 1 day 76cm (on 25th January) November 2025 snowfall 15cm reported on 1 day December 2025 snowfall 134cm reported on 11 days January 2026 snowfall 435cm reported on 21 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.