It is the first day of the early January long weekend - Monday is Coming of Age Day and a national holiday - and traditionally it is a busy one for Japanese ski areas.

It has, of course, been a very sobering start to the year for Japan.

A part of the 2cm I am reporting this morning has come down early morning as there wasn't much overnight when I got up and it is snowing rather nicely as I write this and it doesn't seem windy.

Happy New Year to everyone!

I have another 4cm of snowfall to add to the total for 2023.

Lovely period of sunshine yesterday. It was so lovely.

I can just about justify the 1cm in the report today, just a little snowfall yesterday.

This morning I only have 2cm to report after light snow during the daytime yesterday.

You want some more fresh snow?

We enjoyed some fine weather yesterday, but this morning I bring news of more fresh snow overnight.

Just a little (but particularly lovely) snowfall since yesterday.

Another 15+cm of fresh snow at base with ski areas reporting up to 30cm in upper areas.

Ah yes, some more snow on this very cold Christmas Eve Eve morning. I have just measured 16cm of it. And lovely it is too.

Around the mountain there's another mixed bunch of (weather) conditions as of 8:15am. It's snowing in places.