Yesterday morning the clouds and light snow gradually cleared up and around lunchtime lots of blue sky opened up over the region - for a few hours it was lovely, clear weather. It started clouding over again later on. After a cold night this morning we have just a bit of new snowfall in town areas - up to 20cm at Kagura and less at other resorts around town - and right now it is varying from light snow and just cloudy. There's actually some blue skies over Minamiuonuma to the north at the moment and the sun is out there, so while the forecast is still snow the day there seems a chance it might clear up.

Snow conditions out there are variable at the moment. The weather over the last week or so has hit conditions in lower areas, but good conditions remain higher up. So as things stand now generally the better snow is found the higher you go. That forecast dump of snow today would actually be good for the weekend so fingers crossed on that.

I'll post another report this evening with the latest.

Official resort snow depths @ Friday 17th February 12, AM:
Mt Naeba:
310cm
Kagura:
370cm
Kagura - Tashiro:
340cm
GALA Yuzawa:
390cm
Kandatsu Kogen:
335cm
NASPA Ski Garden:
325cm
Iwappara:
270cm
Yuzawa Kogen:
360cm
Yuzawa Park:
250cm
Yuzawa Nakazato:
255cm
Ludens Yuzawa:
280cm
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Ishiuchi Maruyama:
330cm
Centleisure Maiko:
380cm
Joetsu Kokusai:
280cm

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6pm update

For the most part today was actually quite fine. The sun was out at times, especially in the valley to the north of Yuzawa, but generally just a cloudy day. It has got colder this early evening and light snow is now falling. The forecast is actually for a considerably snowfall tonight and into tomorrow morning with the latest Niigata forecast saying that we might get 40-50cm of new snowfall by tomorrow morning in some places. It doesn't feel like that right now, but certainly possible. A fairly strong north westerly wind a possibility tomorrow, though Kagura say that they are confident that tomorrow will be open as normal.

We will report on what actually happens tomorrow morning.