Yesterday started off with snow of course but by the middle of the afternoon we had some unexpected blue skies above the region and it was all very picturesque with some remaining low lying cloud clustered around the mountains. After a clear night we woke up to some sunshine as well. It got down to around -8 degrees overnight and is currently about -3 degrees in Yuzawa.

Over the last hour or so it has been clouding over and those blue skies have for the most part been covered now. Snow seems to be on it's way. Up to 5cm forecast between now and 3pm for the localised region, but the heavy snow seems to be due starting tonight. We still look set for heavy snow, so I am hoping that tomorrow I can bring news of that.

In fact, I'll update this report tonight with an update.

Official resort snow depths @ 25th January 12, AM:
Mt Naeba:
230cm
Kagura:
310cm
Kagura - Tashiro:
280cm
GALA Yuzawa:
280cm
Kandatsu Kogen:
235cm
NASPA Ski Garden:
230cm
Iwappara:
185cm
Yuzawa Kogen:
260cm
Yuzawa Park:
175cm
Yuzawa Nakazato:
185cm
Ludens Yuzawa:
180cm
----
Ishiuchi Maruyama:
240cm
Centleisure Maiko:
265cm
Joetsu Kokusai:
240cm

>>>

10pm update

And here is the update. Actually there is not a huge amount of snow to report yet... it seems to be snowing more to the north than here so far, with some images of heavy snow in Niigata City and other parts of the prefecture.

After snow starting this morning and then easing off again for a quite clear evening, it has now started again and hopefully this is going to set in. Indeed the local Niigata forecast has us receiving a nice 40-50cm of new snowfall between now and 9am tomorrow morning, so I am hoping that the report tomorrow will say something like that. Currently it is about -4 degrees.

Fingers crossed!