With just a few days to go to opening the situation just keeps getting better.

Furano Ski Area is expected to open for the 2019/2020 winter season on 23 November.

It was a long lead into winter with unusually warm temperatures pushing into December, but despite this Furano Ski Area was able to open up around the same time as usual on 24 November, and close as planned earlier this week on 6 May, at the end of Golden Week.

It is a grey drab day with overcast conditions above and light raining falling.

Furano has had a wintery blast from last weekend and there was a surprise snow fall of 5cm on Sunday and 2cm yesterday in the village.

Furano has been hit with a snow front that has deposited 6cm of nice fresh spring snow on the ground.

It is a perfect spring day with full sunshine bathing the resort. The sun is forecast to stay throughout the day, as are the blue skies.

The snow did arrive late yesterday afternoon and came down quite heavily for a few hours, accumulating on cars and the ground.

It is snowing moderately and there is 5cm of fresh snow on the ground.

There is a nice blanket of fresh snow across the village this morning.

It is a very nice Sunday morning here in Furano. At -6c it is a cool start to the day, but the sun is already shining down on the town strongly.

Today is back to winter with cooler temperatures and a reasonable amount of fresh snowfall.

There is a light dusting of snow across the village, and although only 1cm at base level, I would expect around 5cm at the top of the resort.

It is a little colder this morning at -6c and later in the day the high will peak at -3c.