Hakuba Snow Report – 18th Feb 2011

Weather conditions: Mostly overcast
New snowfall: 15cm (upper); 3cm (lower) [Goryu official]
Snow depth: Hakuba Goryu Top : 310cm [official]
Snow conditions today really depend on how high up you go – in the valley we had warm temperatures and a fair bit of rain leaving things pretty washed out this morning, up a little higher there was a few cms accumulated, and Goryu are reporting 15cm of fresh snow up top.Our weather stations are down today so no detailed info on current temp or wind conditions, as at 8:00 AM Happo reported 1 degree at Nakiyama and -3 on Usagidaira, not cold really. Our barometer in the shade at 760m is reading 4 degrees, but we can see some miniscule flakes of snow coming down from higher up.

Resorts will be a mixed bag of wet snow with quality improving the higher you go with no doubt some good snow right up there – the top of Kurobishi looks like to got some good stuff – and if we get warm temps today it will turn into a real transition from top to bottom.

Visibility is a little restricted from 1500m up but fine lower down, forecast is for light snow showers through the day and clear blue skies tomorrow with possible strong NNW from the afternoon today and lows of -10 overnight.