Hello and welcome to the new 'Aizu Bandai Now' reports.

Actually, this is really just a re-named 'Grandeco Now' as we hope and plan to cover a bit of a wider region with the information we provide this time around. Gambarimasu!

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It was a really hot summer in most of Japan meaning that many people came to the Urabandai area to enjoy camping, trekking, canoeing... and generally to escape from the stifling heat.

Last year, there was some snow in the middle of November and some of the ski hills in the region were able to open on 23rd November 2017. This year though, autumn has seemed rather long - as in most of Japan - and the first snowfall only arrived yesterday.

So now that we seemed to have switched into winter mode (and hopefully it will remain so) we are ready for some reporting!

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The plan for this report is to bring you fresh snow info and the weather for the Grandeco resort (as per last season on 'Grandeco Now'), and some more photos from other ski resorts in Bandai area such as Nekoma and Alts Bandai.

7cm of new snow has fallen at Grandeco last night and it was still snowing this morning but cloudy at base just now.

Some ski hills were hoping to open today but there is not enough snow for that to happen, so we are on standby and waiting for more snow.

The next report will be when it next snows or when some lifts get going.

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Please note:

We might have to make a few technical adjustments to these reports as they get going -- if you see something odd going on... we're working on it!

Thank you.