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.