After the snow of yesterday, this morning the sun is out. All change!

Good morning from a very winter-like and snowy Hakuba. There's not much to see this morning actually as it's an almost total white-out, where I am anyway.

It is clear and sunny across all of Hakuba this morning, an absolutely beautiful morning indeed.

No rain early on which was good but it has started to rain lightly as temperatures rise somewhat. The forecast for Hakuba still has us down for rain in village and snow at higher elevations.

Well, the weekend is over now and a number of people were out there enjoying their first slides of the season.

Just a quick report today to celebrate the official first day of the 2012/2013 season in Hakuba. Unfortunately, it's raining today.

The ski resorts in Hakuba are enjoying the dump from a few days ago. Hakuba Goryu, Hakuba 47 and Happo-one will open this weekend 17th and 18th November for keen skiers and boarders.

Wow, yesterday was perhaps a surprise for many people even if we were expecting snow to fall. Different measurements in different places but around the village it was 25cm in places, and some people over at Happo were reporting up to a full 1m of snow up at 1850m.

Last night the cold winds from Russia blew across the warm waters of the Sea of Japan rising to cloud which formed over the mountainous west coasts of Japan.