A cold front swept its way across Central Hokkaido last night and into the morning, bringing with it colder temperatures and plenty of heavy, wet snow. Temperatures actually rose overnight before turning south of the freezing mark around 9am this morning. Since then, we've seen almost 10cm of big, fluffy flakes extremely high in moisture content. Not quite the dry, powder-like snow we're used to here in Furano, but as Spring approaches we can expect to see a lot more of this variety of snow.

The good news is that there should be plenty of fresh out there. The downside is turns will be a lot slower especially on the lower half of the mountain where the heaviest snow is falling, so please take that into account when speeding down the mountain.

The All-Japan High School Ski Tournament held every year in Furano continues today, but only Spies and Ropeway courses are closed off to the public today. Both Panorama and Technical are now open for everyone.

Temperatures are now hovering around -2 and continuing to fall as the day progresses. Expect overnight lows around -8 with snow falling throughout the evening hours. Tomorrow should be relatively calm with cloudy skies and seasonable temperatures.