Why does Japan get so much snow? It is a combination of the cold weather coming down from Siberia and the “lake effect”, which is the moisture being picked up from the Japan Sea. Once a system reaches the coastline it suddenly hits the Japanese Alps with mountains of 3000 meters and the result is huge amounts of snowfall. Hakuba is positioned perfectly to take advantage of this phenomenon. It is always an argument in waiting, to talk about average snowfalls at ski resorts around the world as the measuring sites may not be a true indication of whats happening on the top of the mountain but you can safely say a bad year in Hakuba will be about 8 meters and a good year will be 14. Somewhere in between would be the average which is more than most other resorts in the world. To offer a exact figure would be stupid as there is a big difference from one end of the valley to the other and every storm offers something new. Strangely some snow reports even give the amount from the lowest point in town which has certainly no relevance to what is happening on the mountain. For daily reports on snowfalls check the Hakuba Facebook Page each morning.
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