Up until a short while ago it was rain/sleet at town level but it has just a short while ago turned into snow. Snow is forecast for the rest of the day (and throughout tomorrow and beyond) - and hopefully a fair amount of it. By later this evening, the region is forecast to get between 25cm-50cm of fresh snow for us all to enjoy. Lets hope they are right!

Kagura, Naeba and Gala Yuzawa were all reporting snow earlier on as well. So while this morning might not be best conditions, things should be looking up as this snow starts to settle.

It's about 1 degree at the moment and looks set to stay around that level and get colder later on with tomorrow forecast to be probably boasting more winter-like temperatures.

Fingers crossed for all that snow!

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PM update:

People are a bit disappointed here tonight as the big snow we were hoping for did not really turn out - not much snow to report unfortunately this evening down at town level. It was snowing this morning but then weakened in the afternoon. It seems that many other places in Niigata, especially to the north, have got more snow today that we have.

BUT - heavy snow looks very likely for tomorrow. Honest. The weather men are telling us that. 20-40cm from now until 9am tomorrow morning is what they are promising, so we are really willing them to be right!

We'll let you know tomorrow morning...