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Zao Now: Friday 24th February 2017

  • Feb 24, 2017
  • 2 min read

Independent snow and weather reporting from the Zao region of Yamagata


New snowfall at base 1cm
Snowfall at base this season 452cm

Posted on Friday 24th February 2017 This is an archived report. The latest Zao Now report can be found here.


After a rather wet and stormy day and evening yesterday - the evening light up operations were cancelled - early morning snow has stopped and the poor visibility is getting much better and things are clearing up nicely. There's actually quite a lot of blue sky up there now and the sun is shining down on us. Colder too this morning so I expect some rather icy slope conditions this morning.


Chance of light snowfall at times over the weekend though nothing too much and it should be keeping fairly cold.


All lifts apart from the following appear to be operating today:


Paradise Number 3 pair

Karamatsu pair


All courses apart from Kotan should be open.


Official snow depths (as published by the resort itself):

Summit - 145cm

Paradise - 220cm

Chuo - 220cm

Utopia - 180cm

Uwanodai - 130cm

Yokokura - 145cm


Juhyo 'Ice Monsters' Light Up night time Zao Ropeway operations


Every day until 5th March 2017.

Operating from 5pm until 9pm; last ropeway up at 7:50pm.

Ropeway return charges are 2,600 yen for adults and 1,300 yen for children.

In the event of poor weather conditions, operations are sometimes cancelled.



Zao Now 2016-2017 season

Data as of Friday 24th February 2017 Total snowfall at base 452cm Number of days snowfall observed at base 51 days Most snowfall observed in 1 day 39cm (on 16th January) November 2016 snowfall 11cm observed on 6 days December 2016 snowfall 98cm observed on 16 days January 2017 snowfall 241cm observed on 16 days February 2017 snowfall 102cm observed on 13 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.


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