Yuzawa Now: Friday 16th February 2024
- Feb 16, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Nov 28, 2025
Independent snow and weather reporting from the Yuzawa & Minamiuonuma region of Niigata
New snowfall at base 2cm
Snowfall at base this seas 512cm
Posted on Friday 16th February 2024 This is an archived report. The latest Yuzawa Now report can be found here.
Good morning from Yuzawa.
Yesterday ended up more cloudy than we expected and it warmed up to around 14C in town early afternoon. As expected, temperatures dropped overnight and it is much colder this morning and currently just under 0C.
Sleeping through some initial rain, it is snowing this morning. There is a small amount of snow on the ground with varying levels of 'dusting' around town areas and up to a few cm in places. Hopefully there will be some more cm at higher elevations and on the ski slopes. (Unfortunately, no such numbers are being reported by ski areas this morning).
It is quite windy too and that is affecting operations at Kagura, which will not be opening as planned (and the Tashiro Area is confirmed as closed for the day). Other ski areas appear to be opening as planned this morning.
The forecast for most of the day is generally cloudy skies and it should remain quite cold. Let's hope the snow keeps going as long as possible.
Weekend weather looks very likely to be clear and sunny and it will be warming up again, though hopefully not as much as it did this week!
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A message from SnowJapan
This general message is being posted on each of our daily reports. It is not specific to Yuzawa or any one region of Japan
It is hard to grasp that we are already in the second half of February. Where did all the time go? Being so busy with daily updates, every winter seems to fly by so very quickly...
By all accounts, this season, there has been a rush of people visiting Japan from most corners of the world to enjoy the mountains. Many famous ski destinations have been busy with 'inbound' guests, with visitor numbers surpassing pre-COVID levels. That subject has been making regular national news here in Japan (and also provoking much-related discussion!)
We sincerely hope everyone visiting enjoyed not only the skiing and snowboarding but also the whole Japan experience. And, of course, that everyone visiting in the coming weeks will also have a great time.
There are not many things that the people behind SnowJapan love more than massive amounts of consistent snowfall. And skiing/snowboarding on it. That love is literally the reason why this website exists!
Inbound visitor statistics aside, the main ski industry story of the 2023-2024 season so far is probably the relatively low snowfall levels across much of Japan. Some regions have been close to normal in terms of expected snowfall. Unfortunately, most regions of Japan haven't had as much snow as usual, and temperatures have stubbornly tended to track 'warmer than usual' which has meant more rain when it might have been snow.
While it hasn't been a classic season in terms of the amount of snowfall, that's not to say there haven't been excellent conditions; many people, including this writer, have enjoyed some very fine days. And for most people, it has been perfectly fine. Reading this, you may very well be one of those. On a day-to-day basis, most visitors probably won't even notice 'the bigger picture' that is being discussed here.
Less snow, however, has various implications for everyone involved in the ski season and dealing with that bigger picture. One of the big things is that the season will probably be shorter than usual.
This last week has been particularly warm; unfortunately, a number of ski areas around Japan have already closed. Unless the weather patterns change significantly, we will be in a situation where we should expect some ski areas to be unable to remain open until their 'planned closing dates'. Those planned closing dates can be found on the individual ski area pages within SnowJapan. Please keep this in mind when looking at the information on our site.
While it is impossible to cover the status of every ski area in real-time, our reporters will discuss this subject in our Now daily reports over the coming weeks.
All being well, we will get more blasts of winter. Heck, it's still February, so we should! (And we plan to be still reporting into early May).
However much more fresh snow we are blessed with across the coming weeks, the best thing we can do is appreciate and celebrate the precious snow we have.
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GALA Yuzawa
Official snow depth: 180cm
The Northern Area connection with Ishiuchi Maruyama is available
The Southern Area connection with Yuzawa Kogen is available
Ishiuchi Maruyama
Official snow depth: 135cm
The connection with the Northern Area of GALA Yuzawa is available
Night skiing until 8:00pm
Iwappara
Official snow depth: 100cm
Night skiing until 7:00pm
Joetsu Kokusai
Official snow depth: 170cm (top)
Night skiing until 8:30pm
Kagura
Official snow depth: 210cm (top), 160cm (base)
Kandatsu Snow Resort
Official snow depth: 120cm
Maiko Snow Resort
Official snow depth: 160cm (top), 40cm (lower)
Muikamachi Hakkaisan
Official snow depth: 220cm (top), 100cm (base)
Naeba
Official snow depth: 120cm (top), 60cm (base)
Night skiing until 8:30pm
See our Naeba Now report
NASPA Ski Garden
Official snow depth: 120cm
Yuzawa Kogen
Official snow depth: 130cm (top), 50cm (base)
The connection with the Southern Area of GALA Yuzawa is available
Yuzawa Nakazato Snow Resort
Official snow depth: 110cm
Yuzawa Park
Official snow depth: 110cm
Yuzawa Now 2023-2024 season |
Data as of Friday 16th February 2024 Total snowfall at base so far 512cm Number of days snowfall observed at base 33 days Most snowfall observed in 1 day 55cm (23rd December) November 2023 snowfall 14cm reported on 2 days December 2023 snowfall 137cm reported on 9 days January 2024 snowfall 306cm reported on 15 days February 2024 snowfall 55cm reported on 7 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.