Zao Now: Friday 17th April 2015
- Apr 17, 2015
- 3 min read
Independent snow and weather reporting from the Zao region of Yamagata
New snowfall at base 0cm
Snowfall at base this season 703cm
Posted on Friday 17th April 2015 This is an archived report. The latest Zao Now report can be found here.
We've had rain and sometimes clearer weather conditions since my last report. Yesterday it was rain top to bottom on the mountain unfortunately.
More significant patches of ground are starting to appear on some lower areas of the mountain now.
9 degrees at 9am this morning here in the village and just cloudy. A chance of rain again today but holding off for the moment.
More chance of seeing the sun tomorrow and it should be a bit warmer too. (Some forecasts also have rain never far away over the coming days - it's all seemingly quite difficult to read at the moment with changeable conditions.
You might have seen on the news in the last week stuff about an increase in signs of volcanic activity around Zao-san's (beautiful, may I say) volcano 'okama' crater. While it's a bit alarming to hear about such things, there has been no eruption or any major event - it's all stuff that we can't feel or see. And of course we hope things stay that way!
Zao Onsen is kind of round the corner and detached from that immediate area and so is not affected by the current warnings that exclude people from going within 1.2km of the crater.
The ski resort is keen to let people know that it is open as planned and not affected by this.
Official snow depths:
Utopia: 120cm
Chuo: 120cm
Paradise: 130cm
Uwanodai: 50cm
Planned lift operating dates and closing dates
Subject to change. This is what the plans are for the lifts that remain operating at Zao Onsen:
Until Sunday 19th April
Kurohime Number 1 Quad
Until Wednesday 6th May
Chuo Number 1 Pair AB
Chuo Number 2 Pair AB
Katakai Triple (* from now only on holidays and Golden Week)
Paradise Pair AB (* from now only on holidays and Golden Week)
Utopia Number 2 Pair (dependant on snow conditions)
Operating through the year (for general tourism outside of snow season)
Sky Cable
Chuo Ropeway
Zao Ropeway
Zao Now 2014-2015 season |
Data as of Friday 17th April 2015 Total snowfall at base 703cm Number of days snowfall observed at base 63 days Most snowfall observed in 1 day 80cm (on 3rd December) November 2014 snowfall 20cm observed on 2 days December 2014 snowfall 281cm observed on 21 days January 2015 snowfall 118cm observed on 15 days February 2015 snowfall 181cm observed on 15 days March 2015 snowfall 103cm observed on 10 days |
All snowfall data presented on this page is the snowfall measured and observed at base/town level by our reporter based in Zao 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.