Good morning from Zao on what must surely be the coldest of the season so far.

It's a cold and snowy morning in Zao.

More fresh snow in Zao this morning.

It's a suitably cold and snowy January morning here and I have 13cm of fresh snow to report on the ground.

Morning from here in Zao where there's nearly 20cm of fresh snow on the ground.

Morning from Zao and happy to report fresh snowfall on the ground this morning.

Morning from Zao and another 12cm of snow to report. I must admit, better than I was expecting (the best kind of surprise!)

It was great to see some proper snowfall yesterday with a decent amount falling both at base and on the slopes.

Morning from Zao and it is snowing. Decent snow too right now. And according to the forecast it is set to snow for the day and hopefully into tomorrow.

A few cm of fresh snow to report this morning which is good; though we of course need to be seeing much more than that.

Things cleared up during the day yesterday leaving us to enjoy some blue skies and fantastic scenery.

I was looking at some of the other early morning reports just before and noticed some pretty impressive snowfalls in Nagano and Niigata.

For the moment and while we had a bit more since my report, no fresh overnight. It is a calm morning here. Fairly cold, no wind, cloudy with decent visibility.

This is better. Just over 10cm of fresh snowfall on the ground here in the village this morning so I would expect more than that up there on the mountain.