Media were just reporting "a ski resort in Gifu Prefecture", but it seems it's Winghills. It seems the local police closed the road to the ski resort. Edit: It seems the road has got re-opened already, so they are not locked in / trapped any longer now. A realtime webcam of Winghills, Gifu Prefecture.
If it was winghills, I can understand. The road up to the resort from hida interchange is pretty hairy
This is from local media this evening. They say Niigata, Toyama, Ishikawa and Fukui might get another 30 to 60cm in the next 24 hours between 6pm today and 6pm tomorrow. They have had too much snow already
14 weather stations of JMA have 200cm of snowdepth or bigger (Niigata = 8, Yamagata = 4, Aomori = 1, Gifu=1) as of 11am. Except one, all of the weather stations are at lower than 500m asl = lower than the lowest lift stations of ski resorts nearby (ski slopes "usually" have a lot bigger snowdepth).
Local media are forecasting it will snow in the downtown Tokyo this midnight - tomorrow morning. White = snow, Blue = rain. Again, even if Tokyo gets snow, our farmland in Ibaraki Pref along the Pacific Ocean won't get snow. This is a shrine near Lake Inawashiro, Aizu region last night. Last season, there was a very significant difference between about 550m asl and 850m asl. I mean, the shrine is by Lake Inawashiro at about 550m asl while our ski lodge is on Urabandai Highland at 850m asl. Last season = by far the worst season in 40 years (my ski & farming guru says so), and the shrine was not covered with snow while Urabandai Highland was covered with snow. I'm happy I can see the shrine nicely covered with snow
Would love to see more footage from Joetsu city and the coastal road down towards Toyama. With this warmer days ahead I imagine it's a race against the clock to clear all that snow off all the roofs.
Sprinkling rain in Yokohama, and 4.4 degrees and dropping. Another 2 degrees would see a bit of snow.... Looks like it's snowing in Gotemba at 472m, about 15km from Mt Fuji. Currently -15C at Mt Fuji, after -20 ovenight.
These systems from the south only rarely produce good snow on the resorts of Nagano/Niigata. Gunma sometimes does ok.
Between 5C and 7C in the coastal cities of Ibaraki Pref = no sign of snow, which is good for farmers, though.
With a well-developed Pacific low we can get 30cm or more (which is a lot for one event here)... this one is weak and staying mostly to the south. Shame as it's staying good and cold. Some southern Nagano cities starting to accumulate though... Iida and Suwa. Karuizawa has managed 1cm so far. Won't get the snoeshoes out just yet.
I think it's the warmest day in the last 3 weeks but it's still snowing at the bottom of ski resort and train station altitude (the twitter is Alts Bandai's twitter).
Thanks for posting. Is it predicting very high temperatures? Or very high chance of extreme weather? What kind of extreme weather? wind?
Temperature...... but this is typical, you can't easily tell what it means. But it seems to say very high temperature warning. But my read from GFS, is that there might be 2 days of high temperatures (22nd-24th).... Freeze levels above 2500m, and again around 28th, freeze levels above 2000m
Ok, It's interesting to call it extreme heat, I think of extreme heat as 50 celsius not 10 or 15 (it is of course relative to the normal season temperatures). Maybe a quick beach trip to Okinawa is in order.
Here is the 10 day weather forecast on Zao Onsen. If the local weather website is accurate, it's cold enough to snow. Late January to early February is the coldest period, and even if it's a lot warmer than average, it can still be cold enough to snow on ski slopes (not all, though). So, I'm not very worried.
Just took a look, yes from the 21st it's looking warmish in Honshu. Can only see up until the 23rd and it looks similar to the image attached.
The JMA translation is clunky - they mean "anomalous" rather than "extreme". Kind of bugs me. @Ramenman - that's tenki.jp, right? I find them so-so for the upcoming few days, but the final few days of the 10-day forecast often seem completely random - sometimes swinging way outside normal temperature ranges for no apparent reason. Maybe it's more accurate for some regions but I find it a bit iffy. Edit: I know 10 days out is impossible to forecast precisely so I don't expect it to be particularly correct, but logically wouldn't you just guess the seasonal average to hedge your bets?
The 546 Thickness line around Toyama places the freeze level at maybe 2000m on 23rd, 4pm JST, around north Nagano, western Niigata By early morning 546 Thickness line around Niigata city places the freeze level at maybe 2300m on 24th, 4am JST, around north Nagano, western Niigata
I totally agree with you both on JMA's translation and Tenki.jp's forecast. Tenki.jp and Weathernews.jp are the two most major weather forecast websites (I think), and they are supposed to have experts and super computers specializing in weather, so their forecast is supposed to be a lot more accurate than mine, so I keep showing their forecasts
JMA say the cold waves which hit Japan between mid December and early January are (partially) thanks to La Niña. https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/0602e77e4c7957ac480787d1bcd6df04151c8354
Local media are reporting today is likely to be as warm as April and yes, it's warm. It might be warm enough to rain even on ski slopes and if it rains on ski slopes in Aizu region, Fukushima Pref today, it's the first time to rain in this season since the season started mid December (a month ago). One rain per month is not that bad. Edit : Inawashiro at 550m is still minus 0.2 C, not too warm yet and it can snow on ski slopes as of 8:30 am.
The forecast maps were always showing that it was going to rain before snow later today. (from about a week back) Freeze levels around 1400m, dropping lower this afternoon, and to very low levels tonight. Forecast maps still showing high freeze levels around 23rd/24th, before snow from the 25th. However, the freeze levels look higher than my earlier estimate, and with more rain. Freeze levels may as high as 3000m on 24th, 24th, 4am JST, around north Nagano, western Niigata. The transition to cold temperatures look quite quick, so there could be avalanche danger due to the distinct transition layer from 25th/26th.
Raining in the village at Nozawa , but turns to snow at about 800mtrs . Wet fat flakes at 1100mtrs I came in too wet for me
A lot of precipitation has been falling on and near the Niigata coast, as rain. However, the temperatures are starting to drop to a couple of + degrees, and it means that it should start snowing soon, at these low levels, or it may have turned already..... It's a balmy 18-19 degrees in Tokyo & Yokohama.
That's a huge temperature difference given I'm really not that far from you. Was rainy/sleety in the morning, which turned into precisely 1 hour of heavy snow around 3 pm leaving several cm on the ground... clear skies now.
These are from local media. Likely to be windy and snowy this evening and tomorrow. Blue = rain, White = snow, Purple = heavy snow.
The weather is turning right now at Hakuba. It was turning sunny up to around 10.30am, but a light westerly breeze has kicked in, and it’s snowing lightly at midday. You could see clouds moving from the west, over the peaks, and across Happo and Goryu/47. I’m at Tsugaike, but it’s probably snowing a bit more at Happo, as it usually does in a westerly.
Heavy snow in honshu.. Yuzawa 18 cm in 6 hours. Sekiyama 20. Looks like a big low pressure system will creep up the pacific coast sunday into monday
Oisawa, a weather station in Yamagata Pref had 40cm over night. I assume many ski resorts in Honshu have had good snow on ski slopes.
Zao Onsen's bottom village had 25cm overnight and I guess 30 - 40cm on ski slopes. This season gives us snowfall (so far) when we need.
It seems the highway running in front of Mt.Bandai, etc is closed for a while due to blizzard (snow + highwind = visibility is very bad)
It appears so. Weather forecast is all over the place so not sure whether to expect rain or snow in the mountains.
This is JMA's forecast on a coastal city of Tohoku only at 6m asl. Dark blue = a lot colder than average year, light blue = colder, white = average, orange = warmer, red = a lot warmer. So, JMA think last 10 days of January are warmer or a lot warmer than average season. (Almost) all regions of Japan are likely be very warm in the rest of January.
The result of highwind. It's the lowest altitude of the region by Lake Inawashiro and the snowdepth is not that big (70cm) but snow is blown away to make some spots of 120cm or bigger.
Yuda (JMA's weather station) had some snowfall overnight often means Geto Kogen had a lot. And Geto Kogen had 40+cm at the bottom.
Gondola on wind hold all day so far at Tsugaike (Hakuba). However, can get almost to the top with chairs..... and there’s about 40-45cm.
Maybe 50cms here ..... all I know is that I have skied fresh tracks all day and mostly faceshots each run . It will be on again tomorrow , there is no one here
And here's the kicker..... You couldn't get to the top of Tsugaike today.....Which means there's STILL 40-45cm+, and it was still snowing when I left!
Looks like there's a possibility of heavy snow coming to Nagano/Kanto this weekend. Nagano and Yamanashi could get messy according to this chart. Earlier forecasts were verging toward more rain/less snow so guess the temperature predictions have been revised downwards. from https://tenki.jp/forecaster/k_shiraishi/2021/01/19/11209.html
I wonder how much of snowfall the 南岸低気圧 gives Mt.Minowa / Mt.Adatara (roughly 1700m). They are relatively close to the Pacific Ocean and one 南岸低気圧 gave the mountains mega snowfall several years ago? (IIRC). Among "good mountains", they are the nearest ones from our main home in Ibaraki Pref, so they are important for us. 南岸低気圧 often gives snowfall to Tokyo but it seems it's too warm to snow in Tokyo this time but mountains in Tohoku are cold enough (the bottom lift station of Minowa ski resort is 1000m asl).
"南低"(Pacific lows) tend to pull in cold air from the north (whereas SOJ lows suck up warm air from the south), so I don't think freeze levels should be overly high, therefore I would guess your mountains would get a decent snowfall. But the forecast lows for the weekend seem quite (very?) high for a midwinter 南低, so not sure quite what to expect...
