Yuzawa Now: Wednesday 16th December 2020
- Dec 16, 2020
- 3 min read
Independent snow and weather reporting from the Yuzawa & Minamiuonuma region of Niigata
New snowfall at base 96cm
Snowfall at base this seas 139cm
Posted on Wednesday 16th December 2020 This is an archived report. The latest Yuzawa Now report can be found here.
A very good morning to you from Yuzawa.
It has been a wild and crazy few days in Yuzawa and Minamiuonuma with some very heavy snowfall... real 'Snow Country' style snowfall.
Last night on the local news it was saying that there was 74cm snow depth in Yuzawa town as of 5pm and that had increased to 82cm by 8pm (and it was 99cm in Tsunan Town at 8pm), and they were forecasting 60cm of snowfall by 6am this morning.
A lot of time was spend shovelling snow yesterday afternoon and making way for the snow that was due overnight.
When I measured the snow yesterday morning I put a ruler in the snow. This morning at 9am that same ruler shows 138cm. So it was 42cm yesterday and 138cm now - an increase of 96cm. After a walk around the area and conversations with a few friends, while there is less in some areas and actually more in others I think that is representative and it is also there in front of our eyes, so it's what goes on the report for today.
The Kagura resort are reporting 80cm of fresh snowfall since yesterday. More courses at Kagura are opening this morning (details below) and they are also going to be opening the Tashiro Area from Friday.
GALA Yuzawa is also planning on opening this morning.
Joetsu Kokusai are going to be opening on Friday too.
With all this snow, there's something of a happy panic going on as everyone gets to grip with it all. Ideally a base builds up, so this sudden heavy snow needs some management and there are of course safety issues too.
But I think it's probably safe to say that the ski areas that were planning to be open from Friday and Saturday will all be able to.
The snow is going to continue to pile up over at least the next few days and quite possibly into early next week. Almost scary to think how much more we might get... definitely exciting, though.
Faith has been restored! :)
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GALA Yuzawa
Operating lifts:
- Diligence Gondola
- Sociable quad lift
- Phaeton pair lift
Courses open:
- Melody
- Entertainment
- Snow Enjoyment Park
Official snow depth:
- 120cm
Kagura
Operating lifts:
- Mitsumata Ropeway (8:00am until 4:30pm)
- Mitsumata Number 1 quad lift (8:00am until 2:30pm)
- Mitsumata Number 2 romance lift (8:15am until 4:00pm)
- Kagura Gondola (8:15am until 3:45pm)
- Kagura Number 1 high speed lift (8:30am until 3:00pm)
Courses open:
- Kagura main course (1,500m)
- Gondola course
- Family course
- Technical course
- Giant course
- Panorama course
Official snow depth:
- Top: 120cm
- Base: 80cm
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Friday 18th December 2020
- Ishiuchi Maruyama
- Joetsu Kokusai
- Maiko Snow Resort
- Kagura (via Tashiro)
Saturday 19th December 2020
- Kandatsu Snow Resort
- Naeba
- Nakazato Snow Wood
- Yuzawa Kogen
- Yuzawa Nakazato
Thursday 24th December 2020
- Iwappara
- NASPA Ski Garden
Friday 25th December 2020
- Ipponsugi
- Muica Snow Resort
- Muikamachi Hakkaisan
- Yuzawa Park
Saturday 26th December 2020
- Chateau Shiozawa
- Hakkai Sanroku
- Itsukamachi
Late December
- Mt Granview
Closed during the 2020-2021 winter season
- Ishiuchi Hanaoka
Yuzawa Now 2020-2021 season |
Data as of Wednesday 16th December 2020 Total snowfall at base so far 139cm Number of days snowfall observed at base 3 days Most snowfall observed in 1 day 96cm (16th December) November 2020 snowfall 0cm December 2020 snowfall 139cm reported on 3 days |
All snowfall data presented on this page is the snowfall measured and observed at base/town level by our reporter based in Yuzawa. 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.