New Snow (Resort): 0cm (Yamabiko)
New Snow (Village): 0cm
Weather: Fine
Snow Depth: 240cm (Yamabiko)
Outlook: Warm temperatures throughout the week, light snow tomorrow evening.
Open Areas: The bottom half of Skyline is now closed, along with all the steeps on the bottom half of the mountain apart from Challenge and Gran Prix.
The only way to describe the snow condition at the moment in Nozawa is absolute rubbish. The consistency of the snow is like a mix between concrete and glue. Weatherwise it was a beautiful day on the mountain, nice to go up and enjoy the views and maybe a picnic.
The poor snow condition at the moment is due to the heavy snow that fell yesterday mixed in with the yellow sand which blew in. I think for the snow to recover we either need some new stuff to fall on top (of course fresh snow would be much better), or for the mountain to go through freeze thaw a couple of times (which would make it icy/slushy)
The forecast has some snow tomorrow night for the top of the mountain. Next week there are a couple of fronts expected to come through, if temperatures drop far enough we could be in for some decent snow.