It will probably keep raining through the day today on and off, hopefully not heavy, and the temperature will keep on above the freezing level with a high of around 6 degrees. Sorry I can’t bring better news about the current conditions.

But — it may turn into snowfall later tonight if we get cold enough and into early tomorrow morning, though it would seem it won’t last too long. But it should definitely be turning colder over the next few days so fingers crossed for that.

The temperature is above freezing level in the vilage and curently around +4 degrees.

The greyer feel to everything is a big contrast to the much clearer conditions and weather that we enjoyed yesterday of course. Right now, the forecast for tomorrow is generally cloudy but there is good news. It should start getting colder again and Sunday into Monday might bring us some snowfall.

Still looking likely that we’ll get rain tomorrow, perhaps even up high though the high temperature may well be similar to what we will see today. Warmer overnight though.

Sunday should be colder with a chance of snow overnight into Monday when temperatures are still looking like they will drop considerably.

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Avalanche Danger is Considerable at all elevations.

Heightened avalanche conditions on specific terrain features. Evaluate snow and terrain carefully; identify features of concern. Natural avalanches unlikely; human-triggered avalanches possible Small avalanches in specific areas; or large avalanches in isolated areas.

Take due precaution on steep convex terrain around rocky outcrops and below ridges and cornices.

Take care on southern aspects today as solar radiated slopes will decrease in stability as temperatures rise through the day. Be cautious of pockets of newly wind transported snow around rocks and in steep unsupported gullies on these solar aspects as the rocks will warm quickly.

The snow on the northern aspects is faceted above the rain crust with a soft slab on top that has been slowly stabilising but remains tender in some areas of side loading and areas with large variations in depth of new snow over the crust.

We are still seeing new slab avalanches everyday in the backcountry some of which have been big. Remember that the bigger the slope the bigger potential for large slab avalanches to propagate.
It is still wise to stay to supported slopes and ride one at a time.

The roads have generally cleared up though quite quickly of their thin new cover earlier on, and the snow clouds have been retreating as well. While there is still a lot of cloud around up there, there’s also lots of blue sky as well and the sun shining down in places.

Temperatures dipped to around -3 degree overnight in the village and will rise to around +1 during the day today and there’s a moderate NNE wind but nothing that is affecting lift operations around Hakuba and Otari.

Looking forward to the weekend. Well, it looks like tomorrow should be clear and probably sunny too and then warmer still on Saturday with a high of around 8 or 9 degrees. It’s still looking as if rain is going to be with us Saturday at least lower down – fingers crossed that at least higher elevations might see snow but it’s going to be borderline. Let’s just see how things develop. Better news is that we can look forward to colder temperatures once again from Monday along with snow on the forecast.

This morning it is a beautiful start to the day in Hakuba. Those amazing snowy mountains contrasting with a mostly clear blue sky background – just beautiful. Just in the last hour or so a few clouds have started to form above the mountain line in places, but still it is very much a blue sky day. Sunscreen definitely recommended.

The air is pretty cold as the wind is coming down from north. It was very cold overnight – down to minus double digits – and it is a cold start to the day but will probably warm up to about +2 later on this afternoon. The snow quality was great out on the slopes yesterday and it should be really nice this morning too, almost feels like mid winter again.

It will probably be clear all day today, but cloud over later on tonight and we may have some snowfall overnight into tomorrow. Tomorrow should be keeping things cold but after that temperatures are likely to rise into the weekend. There might even be rain falling lower down at least on Saturday but there’s hopefully time for that forecast to change and us avoid that. Beyond that looking quite promising for early in the week snow-wise.