It is a fine and sunny morning across the region (some low cloud aside). Still quite cold, but it will be warming up by this afternoon as the sun gets to work.

Yesterday afternoon the ski area was reporting 20-30cm of snow across the mountain since morning and this morning there's another up to 50cm being reported.

Ski area reporting 30cm since yesterday afternoon (sorry, I was not able to check on any mid-day numbers) but there is another good thick layer of snow out there.

Greetings on this snowy Nozawa Onsen morning. There's a good 30cm of it around base areas.

Merry Christmas to you all from Nozawa Onsen. And it is a very fine morning here.

There's now only a handful of runs that are now not available at Nozawa Onsen which is just brilliant considering it is not yet Christmas!

Some more fresh snow to report and for now a largely cloudy start to the day.

The very good news is that it is snowing and we expect a lot over the next few days.

Snow started by the afternoon yesterday, and quite heavy at times, though it eased off by night time.

Just a little snow yesterday morning post-report, but no more since then.

After some clearer and not-as-cold yesterday, we start this morning with a modest amount of fresh snow on the ground and the skijo is reporting 7cm overnight.

We had some clearer weather at times yesterday and so just a dusting since my early morning report yesterday really.

And we are back to snow. Not a huge amount...

There is some low lying cloud early morning but higher up the sun is shining through the clouds in places. Not clear skies, but it looks like a fine start to the day up there.