Changelog

Hakuba Cortina added

Hakuba Cortina is now on JapowDB — the powder capital of the Hakuba Valley, with 26 seasons of snow history, trails, lifts, and ticket prices.

Disabled-discount tiers no longer skew cheapest price

Lift-ticket cost comparisons no longer treat disabled-discount tiers as the cheapest option — they still show in the price tables but are excluded from the trip-cost optimizer.

Canmore Ski Village added

Canmore Ski Village (Hokkaido) is now on JapowDB — a small family resort near Asahikawa, with trails, lifts, ticket prices, and ~26 seasons of snow history.

Your profile and public handle

Claim a @handle and set an avatar — your identity now carries across the app, with your lifetime totals (days, vertical, runs) on a new profile hub.

Season activity heatmap

Your profile now shows a season activity heatmap — every day you rode, laid out across the season at a glance.

Riding profile and skill trends

See your rider profile on your hub — a skill snapshot and how your riding has been trending over time, from your logged trips.

Resorts-visited map

Your profile now maps every resort you've ridden, with a ranked list of where you've spent the most days.

Powder-days heatmap quality filter

The powder-days heatmap now shows simple powder days by default, with a toggle to filter for cold, dry snow quality.

More accurate powder-day counts

Powder-day counts now use a unified snowfall signal, so resorts with distant or low-elevation weather stations (e.g. Myoko) report accurate powder days instead of zero.

Pick and swap resorts on the compare page

You can now choose, swap, and remove the resorts you're comparing right on the compare page — a searchable picker on each column and an "Add a resort" button — instead of editing the address bar.

Corrected slope counts on the compare page

The compare page no longer counts minor, off-trail-map runs, so each resort's slope count now matches the figure shown on its own page.

Clearer lift lines on the 3D map

Lifts on the 3D terrain map are now drawn as a distinct dashed line with a legend entry, so they're easy to tell apart from the ski trails.

Pull-down to close bottom sheets

Mobile bottom sheets can now be dismissed with a downward drag on the handle, the gesture you'd expect, in addition to tapping outside.

Smoother slope browsing on the videos page

On the resort videos page, difficulty filters with no slopes are now disabled instead of blanking the list, and tapping a slope closes the sheet and scrolls straight to its videos.

Faster-loading 3D maps

The 3D terrain map now loads its engine only when needed, so resort map pages appear far faster — especially on mobile — with a loading indicator while the map renders.

Smoother multi-day trip diaries

Trip diaries with many ride-days stay smooth instead of straining the browser, by keeping only the maps you're viewing active.

2D map fallback on unsupported devices

On devices that can't display the 3D map, resort and diary maps now fall back to a 2D map with trails instead of showing an error.

Your riding profile

A new profile card summarizes how you ride — your terrain ceiling, control, favoured aspect, and a weakness to work on — alongside clearer per-day insights.

Smoother bottom sheets on mobile

The slope browser and run sidebar now open in a consistent bottom sheet on mobile, capped in height with a scrolling body so tall content no longer leaves a gap.

Fixed mobile layout overflow

Fixed pages that overflowed sideways on mobile — the resort video stats row and the resort section tabs now wrap or scroll cleanly.

Relive your runs on the 3D mountain

Each day's runs are replayed on the 3D terrain map — pick a run to see it traced on the mountain, with the camera looking uphill so the descent reads naturally.

Per-run stats and personal records

Every run now shows a full set of metrics — top pitch, turns, sinuosity, speed and more — plus how it ranks among your own runs, with a badge for your records.

Weather recall for each ride day

Each day in your diary shows a weather-recall card — a powder-day badge, base depth, and that day's temperature and wind, drawn from resort reports.

Easier trip sharing and editing

Share or delete a trip from a tidy bottom sheet, and Save now stays disabled until you actually change something.

Upload your past ski days

Upload your GPX tracks to build a trip diary — your rides are organized into trips, days, and individual runs, each with that day's conditions, ride stats, and an elevation profile.

Deleting a trip cleans up properly

Deleting a trip now also removes its rides, days, and runs instead of leaving orphaned entries, and the share and delete buttons work reliably after navigating within the app.

Fixed false 1,000cm snow-depth spikes

Resort-reported snow depth showed misleading ~1,000cm spikes at the start and end of the season for some resorts. These came from a no-report placeholder being read as a real depth and are now removed, so the resort snow-depth chart is accurate year-round.

Geto Kogen lift data added

Added lift data for Geto Kogen, with the lift lines now drawn on the trail map.

Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama added

Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama, the Prince-operated 1998 Olympic sub-area at the north end of Shiga Kogen, is now in the database.

Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama snow history

Decades of snow history for Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama, combining the high-altitude Sugadaira station with resort-reported snow depth so the 1,550m+ terrain isn't undercounted by a valley station.

Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama lift ticket prices

Full lift-ticket pricing for Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama, covering the Yakebitaiyama-area passes and the Greater Shiga Kogen common pass, in English, Japanese and Traditional Chinese.

Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama runs and lifts

Slope and lift details for Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama: five lifts (two gondolas, two high-speed quads, a pair lift) and reviewed run names and difficulty.

Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama trail map and videos

Japanese and English trail maps for Shiga Kogen Yakebitaiyama with annotated runs and lifts, plus indexed YouTube videos.

Snow report charts load much faster

The snow report's depth, snowfall, temperature and wind charts could hang while loading when switching the season or data source on resorts with long history. The underlying chart data is now about 60% smaller, so they load promptly.

Snow depth chart shows the correct data source

In Resort mode, the snow depth chart now labels its source as the resort report (naming the reporting area, e.g. Grand Hirafu for Niseko United) instead of always crediting the JMA weather station.

Leaderboard scores stay consistent when switching seasons

Fixed a caching issue where toggling the leaderboard's season window (peak / preseason / late / whole) and back could briefly show stale scores from an earlier version instead of the current ones.

Fairer wind 'Conditions' score, now advisory

The Conditions sub-score (calm wind on powder days) now compares each resort's powder-day wind to its own typical winter wind, instead of a fixed threshold on coarse model data that unfairly crushed exposed resorts like Appi, Tomamu and Geto. It is also down-weighted to an advisory 5%, since on-slope wind is the least certain signal.

Resorts table no longer collapses on tablet screens

The resorts table now scrolls sideways on mid-width screens instead of squeezing the resort name column into a single vertical letter-by-letter sliver.

Snow report shows measured resort depth, not estimates

The snow report's resort depth line now shows only measured on-mountain readings, with honest gaps where a resort didn't report — instead of an estimate blended in from the valley weather station. Resorts with their own depth data now open on that measured series by default, and a label notes where the depth was measured.

Fairer powder reliability scores across all resorts

Powder-day counts now combine resort-reported depth changes with weather-station snowfall, rescuing resorts whose valley station under-reports mountain dumps, and base reliability now uses a smooth coverage scale instead of a hard cutoff. Rankings reflect snow rather than weather-station placement — deep resorts stay on top while valley-station resorts rise to fair positions. Recalculated scores carry a "yuki" label.

Niseko United now scored on 12 winters of resort snow depth

Niseko United previously had only a single partial season of depth data, leaving its powder reliability low-confidence. It now carries 12 winters (2014/15 through 2025/26) of daily snow depth measured at the Grand Hirafu area, so it ranks as the deep-base resort it is. The snow report notes the depth is measured at Grand Hirafu.

Geto Kogen snow + weather history backfilled (12+ winters)

Geto Kogen now has both JMA weather data (closest official station: 北上 / Kitakami, 27 winters of daily observations 2000–2026) and resort-reported snow depth from SnowJapan (12 winters, 2014/15 through 2025/26, monthly depth tables for Dec/Jan/Feb/Mar/Apr — 1601 daily readings). The resort-reported depth is the primary signal for Base Reliability scoring since Geto's mountain (460–1090m) holds materially more snow than the Kitakami valley station (61m); JMA backs snowfall and weather. Snow charts, multi-season comparisons, and the snow report page now render real history for Geto on day one of going public.

Geto Kogen added — Iwate's deep-snow tree-skiing resort goes public

Geto Kogen Ski Resort (夏油高原, Kitakami, Iwate) is now public on the site. It's known across Japan for one of the deepest natural snowpacks (often 5+ metres mid-season) and its officially-managed tree-run zones — Heart Forest, Rabbit, Garden, Summit, Beach and others — that creators talk about constantly. The launch includes the full data set: 14 named courses (A1–C5) with cleaned slope geometry, 5 lifts, 2025/26 lift ticket pricing in EN and JA, the trail map, 86 indexed YouTube transcripts, and 105 slope/zone mentions linking video timestamps to specific terrain.

Tree-run zones now surface on the resort videos page

Resort videos pages now include a "Tree-run zones (not on trail map)" section grouping creator mentions of named off-piste areas the trail map doesn't cover — Heart Forest, Rabbit, Garden, and the other tree zones at Geto Kogen, for example. Each zone shows how many videos discuss it and surfaces the same timestamped video cards as the per-slope panels, so visitors can jump straight to creator footage of the zone they're curious about. A footnote calls out that these areas don't have official trail-map geometry, since their boundaries are creator-narrated rather than published by the resort.

Compare-page floating TOC now lists every metric row

The floating Table of Contents on the resort compare page used to show only top-level section headers (Snow, Terrain, Pricing, etc.) and missed every individual metric row underneath them. Each metric row is now exposed as a nested entry in the TOC, so a single click jumps straight to "Powder score" or "Season pass" without scrolling. The TOC also rebuilds itself when you change the selected resorts, since that's when the table re-renders.

Conditional ticket discounts no longer skew compare-page pricing

Some resorts publish discounted tickets that require a special condition — Nekoma's "Season Pass Companion Discount" (you must arrive with a Nekoma season pass holder), Tomamu's "Hotel Guest" rate, Zao Onsen's "Yamagata Resident Discount", Ikenotaira's "Family Ticket" bundle, and others. The compare page was treating these as the canonical adult day pass and picking them as the cheapest price, which understated the typical visitor's cost. 31 such rows across 6 resorts (Nekoma, Tomamu, Zao Onsen, Ikenotaira Onsen, Kandatsu, Sapporo Kokusai) are now tagged with an eligibility constraint and excluded from the price comparison; conditional rows still appear in the full price tables as informational.

3D resort map now loads instead of stalling

The 3D terrain map on every resort's map page was silently re-downloading the full terrain archive (tens of megabytes) for every visible tile, hammering the network and leaving the map blank or half-rendered. The viewer now reads each tile as a small range request inside the archive, so the map loads quickly and reliably.

Remove (×) button on compare bar pills no longer clipped

When a selected resort showed its logo in the floating compare bar, the small × button used to remove it from the comparison was being cropped by the round logo frame. The × is now fully visible and clickable on every pill.

Compare page now shows pricing for single-season resorts

Resorts that don't break their season into early/main/late tiers — like Ikenotaira Onsen Alpen Blick, Tazawako, Myoko Suginohara — were missing their day pass and season pass on the compare page. The pricing picker was filtering only the main-season period and skipping the catch-all 'all season' label these resorts use. The picker now accepts both, and three resorts (Ikenotaira, Kandatsu, Madarao) were re-seeded into the database so their tickets appear. Disability-discount and family-bundle tickets are now also excluded so they don't accidentally become the canonical day pass.

Compare bar pills now show resort logos

When picking resorts to compare on the resorts page, each selected resort's pill in the floating compare bar now shows that resort's logo inside the circle. Resorts without a logo on file keep the original colored letter avatar.

Table of contents now shows sub-sections

The floating table of contents on blog posts and long pages now nests sub-section headings (h3) underneath their parent section (h2), with a shorter ruler line and an indented sub-list. Jumping to a sub-section now works directly from the TOC instead of forcing readers to scroll through the parent section first.

Discord banner dismiss now sticks for 30 days

Closing the Discord banner now hides it for 30 days across all tabs and sessions, instead of just the current tab. Two bugs were also fixed at the same time: the banner used to reappear when navigating between pages, and the close button would stop working on every page after the first. Both came from how Astro's view-transitions swap page content; the dismiss state now persists in localStorage and the close button uses event delegation so it stays responsive across every navigation.

japowdb is on Discord — join the powder chasers

We opened a Discord server for chasers of Japan powder. A banner at the top of every page makes it one click away (close it if you've already joined — it stays hidden for the rest of your session). The community focuses on real-time conditions, field reports, and trip coordination; in the coming weeks the data pipeline will start auto-posting daily snow alerts, powder-day callouts, and a weekly recap directly into the server so the room stays active even off-season. Look for the 'Talk powder in our Discord' link in the banner below the nav or in the page footer.

Off-season weather card no longer shows stale snow depth

Fixed a bug where resort pages displayed last-recorded snow depth (e.g. Niseko showing 180 cm in May) after the season had ended. Snow data is now gated by two layers: the resort's published operating window (per resorts.json) and a freshness check on the latest observation. When either fails, the resort page hides the weather summary card and the embed widget falls back to a 'Season opens December' note.

Ikenotaira Onsen lift ticket prices added

Ikenotaira Onsen (Myoko, Niigata) now has its full 2025-26 lift ticket pricing on the resort page — 34 priced tiers covering full-day, multi-day (2-day + 3-day), half-day, point tickets, and season passes, across adult / youth / child / senior. Single-tier pricing (no early-/peak-/spring-season splits) keyed under the canonical whole_season group with the operating window December 13, 2025 – March 29, 2026. Sourced live from alpenblick-resort.com/ski.

Kiroro Snow World lift ticket prices now sourced from the official English page

Kiroro Snow World's 2025-26 prices were previously indexed only from the Japanese ticket page, with English labels back-translated by AI. This update re-fetches the official English ticket page (kiroro.co.jp/en/lift_price/) so all 80 English ticket-name labels are now verbatim from the resort's own EN translations — more accurate and on-brand than the prior AI-derived names. Japanese ticket-name labels were also refreshed from a parallel JA re-fetch. Season-name displays carry trilingual forms (e.g. ハイシーズン／High Season／高峰季).

Rusutsu Resort lift ticket prices now trilingual (current + previous season)

Rusutsu Resort's lift ticket prices now display in Japanese, English, and Traditional Chinese for both the 2025-26 season (68 priced tiers) and the 2024-25 season (68 tiers from a Wayback snapshot). Coverage includes Early Season 1, Early Season 2, Regular season, and Spring Season, across full-day, multi-day, half-day, top-up, multi-hour, point, and night passes. Season-name displays now read レギュラーシーズン／春スキーシーズン and 正常季／春季alongside the English originals.

Niseko United lift ticket prices now trilingual

Niseko United's 2025-26 lift ticket prices (70 tiers across Early Season, Regular Season, Spring Season, and Final Season — covering adult, youth, child, senior, full-day, multi-day, half-day, point, and multi-hour passes) now display in Japanese, English, and Traditional Chinese. English labels remain the canonical scraped source from the resort's EN price page; Japanese and Traditional Chinese filled in for all rows including the four season-name displays (通常期／早期／春シーズン／ファイナル and 正常季／早期／春季／最終季).

Resort logos now show across the site

Wordmark and icon logos now render on the resort detail hero, the resorts index table, blog cards, the Leaflet map markers, and the resort comparison view. Resorts without a sourced logo continue to fall back to the resort's English name text — no missing-image placeholders anywhere. Coverage will keep growing as the logo sourcing pipeline runs on the remaining resorts.

Embeddable resort widget — paste japowdb snow stats on any site

Every public resort page now has an Embed button that gives you a copy-paste snippet for an iframe widget. The widget renders the resort name, current snow depth + 24h change, vertical, runs, lifts, skiable area, and a season-to-date snow-depth sparkline — all in the same washi style as the site. Updates automatically with our daily rebuild, so the date in the footer ("Updated {date} JST") rolls forward each morning. Available in English, Japanese, and Traditional Chinese, and ships with a sibling backlink for SEO so it actually helps your page rank when other sites embed you.

Share button on every resort page (native share on mobile, copy on desktop)

Resort detail pages now have a Share button next to the Embed button. On mobile it opens the phone's native share sheet (AirDrop, Messages, WhatsApp, Line, etc.); on desktop it copies the page URL to the clipboard and flashes a "Link copied" confirmation on the button. Localized in English, Japanese, and Traditional Chinese.

Mobile resort page header cleaned up — title breathes, map fills the screen

The resort detail page header used to feel cramped on phones — the title would wrap to 3 lines and the location map was stuck at 300px wide regardless of screen width. The action buttons (Embed, Share) now stack below the title with generous spacing, the title gets full width to breathe, and the resort location map now stretches edge-to-edge on mobile so you can actually read the city labels.

Compare table column headers no longer crush long resort names

On the compare page, long names like "Myoko Suginohara Ski Resort" used to wrap to three lines because the column-header logo and serif title were competing for horizontal space. The logo and title in the column headers are now noticeably smaller, so names fit on one or two lines and the columns feel less cramped — particularly noticeable when comparing 3+ resorts side by side.

Kandatsu Snow Resort lift ticket prices added

Kandatsu Snow Resort (Yuzawa, Niigata) now has full 2025-26 lift ticket pricing on its resort page — high-season weekday/Saturday/Sunday day passes, half-day tickets, night passes, season passports, and the 19/20 youth discount programs. Prices include peak and year-end pricing recovered from a mid-season Wayback snapshot since the resort's live page had switched to spring closing rates by the time we indexed.

Madarao Mountain Resort lift ticket prices refreshed with correct Japanese labels

Madarao Mountain Resort lift ticket data has been re-indexed from the resort's actual Japanese pricing page (the configured URL was previously pointing at the English version, so the Japanese labels in our data were Romanized fallbacks rather than the resort's own kanji terms). All 42 ticket tiers — Mountain Pass (1/2/3-day with Madarao + Tangram access), Area Pass hour-based tickets, night pass, and the two season passports — now display the resort's verbatim Japanese, English, and Traditional Chinese labels.

Video durations restored across resort video pages

Restored missing video duration data — Ikenotaira Onsen Alpen Blick had all 262 videos showing no duration, with several other resorts each missing a handful. Duration metadata has been backfilled from the YouTube API, deleted/private videos are correctly flagged so they no longer count as 'missing', and resort live-camera feeds (the perpetual livestreams from Niseko United, Sapporo Kokusai, Sapporo Teine, and Zao Onsen) are now identified as livestreams rather than reported as missing data.

Embed a resort's live snow data on your own site

Hotels, lodges, travel blogs, and ski-rental shops can now embed a small card showing any public resort's live snow depth, recent 24-hour snowfall, and headline stats (vertical drop, run count, lift count, skiable area). Each resort's overview page now has an 'Embed' button next to the resort name that opens a configurator — pick a language (English / 日本語 / 繁體中文), preview live, copy the snippet. The embed pages live at /embed/{resort}/{lang}.html, are noindexed, refresh daily with the snow scrape, and include a sibling backlink so search engines still credit japowdb for the data.

Sapporo Kokusai slope geometry refined (angle, aspect, area)

Sapporo Kokusai slopes re-derived from the latest centerline data — slope angle (avg + max), aspect direction, and per-run area_ha refreshed for the full run inventory. Some runs that previously showed a 0.0° aspect or null area now carry real values. Affects slope difficulty rendering and any future terrain-depth comparisons.

Lift data enriched for Hakuba Happo-One, Ikenotaira Onsen, Kandatsu, Myoko Suginohara, Nozawa Onsen

Five resorts' lift data now carries enriched fields — built years (where documented), manufacturer (where identifiable), capacity per car, lift type, and operating hours by season. Sources cited per field for traceability. This is part of an ongoing pipeline-wide pass to give every lift its complete biographical record.

Sapporo Kokusai lift ticket prices now trilingual

Sapporo Kokusai's 2025-26 lift ticket prices (19 tiers across Regular and Spring Seasons — adult, senior 60+, grand senior 65+, junior/senior high, elementary, preschool, 4-hour, point tickets, Sky Cabin one-way + round-trip, snow escalator) now display in Japanese, English, and Traditional Chinese. Japanese labels canonical from the resort's JA price page; English labels from the resort's EN translation; Traditional Chinese filled in for all rows.

Sapporo Kokusai lift data enriched (Sky Cabin manufacturer + seasons)

Sapporo Kokusai's Sky Cabin 8-person gondola now carries its manufacturer (Nippon Cable / 日本ケーブル) and built year (1989 replacement of the original 6-person unit — notable as the third-ever Nippon Cable independently-designed gondola). All four lifts (Marchen Quad, Sky Cabin 8, Woody Pair, Echo Quad) now carry Regular Season (9:00–17:00 daily) and Spring Season (9:00–16:00) operating hours. No night skiing.

Tazawako lift data enriched (built years + operating hours)

All six Tazawako chair lifts now carry installation years (Ginrei Quad 1990, Ginrei 1 1996, Kamoshika Quad 2005, Mizusawa + Mt. Kuromori 1992 from the 1992 consolidation), plus Kamoshika Quad's confirmed 5 m/s speed. Regular Season operating hours (weekday 9:00–16:00, weekend 8:30–16:00, no night skiing) recorded per lift. Sources cited per field for review traceability.

Myoko Suginohara & Tazawako lift ticket pricing

Added trilingual lift ticket prices for two more Tohoku/Niigata resorts: Myoko Suginohara (25 priced rows across a regular season Dec 13 – Mar 29 plus a late-season Final pass valid Feb 24 onward) and Tazawako (14 priced rows for the standard Dec 20 – Mar 29 season, including 1-day, 5-hour, 1-ride, and a full season-pass age tier). All rows ship with Japanese, English, and Traditional Chinese labels and notes.

Myoko Suginohara & Tazawako: YouTube video durations populated

Backfilled video duration metadata for two more resorts: Myoko Suginohara (157 videos populated, 1 deleted video flagged) and Tazawako (218 videos populated, ranging from 7 seconds to 53 minutes). The /japow:index-youtube health card now shows zero missing durations on both resorts. Tazawako's creator-claim audit reruns clean: 11 Review/Overview videos, 33 atomic claims, 100% dedicated corpus.

Nozawa Onsen: lift ticket prices now display in Japanese and Traditional Chinese

All 29 Nozawa Onsen lift ticket rows previously had only English labels (label_ja and label_tw were null). Backfilled authentic Japanese wording from the resort's own winter ticket page (Wayback snapshot Nov 10, 2025), then translated to Traditional Chinese — so the Tickets section now reads naturally in every locale (e.g. 1 Day / 1日券 / 1日券 with locale-specific notes). Also restructured the season grouping: 26 regular-season rows are now labelled regular_season (通常期 / Regular Season / 正常季) while the Spring Season Pass rows keep the Spring Season label, instead of leaving the catch-all unlabelled.

Madarao: YouTube video durations populated

All 158 indexed YouTube videos for Madarao Mountain Resort now have duration metadata (ranging from 5 seconds to 53 minutes, median 8 minutes). Affects how transcripts are surfaced in resort guides and any feature that filters videos by length.

Madarao: lift operating hours + ticket season grouped under whole_season

Madarao Mountain Resort runs as a single continuous winter period (Dec 13, 2025 – Mar 29, 2026) with no Early/Regular/Spring distinction. All 9 lifts now carry operating hours (08:30–16:30 daytime; night skiing left unverified per-lift), and all 43 ticket-price rows are grouped under one season definition so Studio renders them as a single block in every locale (通常期 / Winter Season / 正常季).

Joetsu Kokusai brand logo

Joetsu Kokusai (上越国際スキー場, Niigata) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Trilingual lift ticket labels: Appi Kogen, Zao Onsen, Furano

Appi Kogen, Zao Onsen, and Furano lift-ticket prices now carry fully trilingual labels and notes (Japanese, English, Traditional Chinese), with season names expressed in their canonical Japanese form alongside English / 繁中 displays. Phase 5 of the trilingual lift-ticket project — legacy English-only rows now translated and seeded across all three locales.

Geto Kogen brand logo

Geto Kogen (夏油高原スキー場, Iwate) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Ikenotaira Onsen brand logo

Ikenotaira Onsen (池の平温泉スキー場, Niigata) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Kandatsu brand logo

Kandatsu (神立スノーリゾート, Niigata) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Sapporo Kokusai brand logo

Sapporo Kokusai (札幌国際スキー場, Hokkaido) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Nekoma lift ticket pricing

Added trilingual lift ticket prices for Hoshino Resorts Nekoma — 27 priced rows across 11 ticket types, organised by Regular Season (Dec 6 – Mar 27) and Spring Season (Mar 28 – May 6).

Compare resorts side by side

Pick up to 3 resorts from the index using the new checkbox column, then click the floating Compare pill to see them side by side at /compare?resorts=… on Snow, Terrain, Season, and Features. The best value in each row is marked with a ★. URLs are shareable, locale-aware (日本語 / English / 繁體中文), and the comparison is built from the same data the resort index uses so the numbers never disagree.

Myoko Suginohara brand logo

Myoko Suginohara (妙高杉ノ原スキー場, Niigata) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Nozawa Onsen Snow Resort brand logo

Nozawa Onsen Snow Resort (野沢温泉スキー場, Nagano) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Appi Kogen brand logo

Appi Kogen (安比高原スキー場, Iwate) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Hoshino Resorts Nekoma brand logo

Hoshino Resorts Nekoma (猫魔スキー場, Fukushima) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Takasu Snow Park brand logo

Takasu Snow Park (高鷲スノーパーク, Gifu) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Sapporo Teine brand logo

Sapporo Teine (サッポロテイネ, Hokkaido) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Updated Niseko United brand logo

Replaced the placeholder SVG logos for Niseko United (ニセコユナイテッド, Hokkaido) with curated 600×600 PNG variants for sharper rendering on resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Updated Furano Ski Resort brand logo

Refreshed the Furano Ski Resort (富良野スキー場, Hokkaido) wordmark and icon with curated JPG variants, and extended the resort-logo loader to recognise JPG/JPEG files in addition to SVG/WebP/PNG.

Updated Rusutsu Resort brand logo

Replaced the placeholder SVG logos for Rusutsu Resort (ルスツリゾート, Hokkaido) with curated 600×600 PNG variants for sharper rendering on resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Kiroro Snow World brand logo

Kiroro Snow World (キロロスノーワールド, Hokkaido) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Hakuba Happo-One Snow Resort brand logo

Hakuba Happo-One Snow Resort (白馬八方尾根スキー場, Nagano) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Madarao Mountain Resort brand logo

Madarao Mountain Resort (斑尾高原スキー場, Nagano) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Tazawako Ski Resort brand logo

Tazawako Ski Resort (たざわ湖スキー場, Akita) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Zao Onsen Ski Resort brand logo

Zao Onsen Ski Resort (蔵王温泉スキー場, Yamagata) now displays its official wordmark and icon across resort cards, headers, and comparison views.

Fixed Myoko Suginohara official site link

Updated the official-site link for Myoko Suginohara from the broken princehotels.com/en/ski/myoko_kogen/ (404) to the live JA canonical at princehotels.co.jp/ski/myoko/.

New resort: Takasu Snow Park

Takasu Snow Park (高鷲スノーパーク, Gifu) — Western Japan's largest ski area — goes public with full onboarding: 32 named runs, 9 lifts including the unique 15-passenger SP Gondola, 25-26 season lift prices, and 92 indexed videos with creator-reviewed slope mentions.

Niseko United inactive magic carpets named

Assigned 'Magic Carpet (inactive)' placeholders to two unnamed, inactive magic carpet lifts (osm_way_id 1155795494 and 1368331021) so the lifts-named pipeline check passes without a full review-lifts cycle.

Creator opinion claims extended to 3 more resorts

Indexed 210 atomic creator opinions from 40 Review/Overview YouTube videos at Ikenotaira Onsen, Madarao, and Tazawako — bringing all 17 indexed resorts to full coverage (1,439 claims across 299 videos).

YouTube claim quality audit + cross-resort comparison index

Added a post-extraction quality audit (Step 5c) that flags low-relevance videos, duplicate transcripts, channel bias, and cross-resort false positives. Routes multi-resort comparison videos into a new index that will power future reviewer-comparison product surfaces.

Metric glossary substitution in guide prose

Guide prose can now reference metrics by short keys that expand into full names with hover-explainers at render time, keeping copy concise without sacrificing precision.

Creator opinion claims extracted across 14 resorts

Mined 1,229 atomic creator opinions from 259 Review/Overview YouTube videos across 14 resorts to power the upcoming creator-consensus guide section.

Niseko United lift ticket prices reviewed

Reviewed and verified 70 lift ticket prices for Niseko United — 66 confirmed, 4 rejected as not applicable.

Rusutsu lift operating hours corrected

Corrected nighttime skiing eligibility — only West No.1 and West No.2 Quad operate at night; daytime closing times reduced to 16:00 for non-illuminated lifts.

Sapporo Teine lift ticket prices added

Indexed 113 lift ticket prices for the 2025–26 season at Sapporo Teine.

Geto Kogen resort data added

Added slopes, lifts, and climate data for Geto Kogen ski resort in Iwate.

"What is Japow?" article updated with richer FAQ and comparison data

Added two new FAQ entries (Japanuary and Japan vs Utah powder), a four-region snowfall comparison table, and improved section headings to match common search queries.

Lift ticket prices added for Rusutsu Resort and Sapporo Teine

2025/26 season lift ticket prices are now available for Rusutsu Resort and Sapporo Teine, including day passes and multi-day options across age groups.

Ikenotaira Onsen: slopes, lifts, and trail map added

Ikenotaira Onsen Alpen Blick now has full slope and lift data, including named runs with difficulty and length, and an annotated trail map.

New article: What is Japow?

A data-backed deep dive into why Japan produces some of the world's best powder snow — covering the Siberian High, Sea of Japan moisture, orographic lift, and 20+ years of historical snowfall data across 11 resorts.

Japow mechanism diagram in the What is Japow article

The What is Japow article now includes an animated infographic explaining the three-step mechanism behind japow powder: Siberian High cold air, Sea of Japan moisture pickup, and windward orographic lift.

Resort card at the end of articles

Blog articles can now feature an editorial resort card showing summit elevation, vertical drop, skiable area, and season window — with direct links to the snow report and trail map.

3D terrain maps now load at wider zoom levels

Terrain elevation data for all 16 resorts now covers zoom levels 9–16, allowing the 3D map to show terrain context when zoomed further out.

Mobile nav replaced with Search & Navigate

On mobile, nav links are replaced by a single Search & Navigate button that opens the quick-navigation panel.

Search dialog now supports Japanese

The search dialog shows Japanese resort, slope, and lift names when browsing in Japanese, and all UI labels are translated.

Powder leaderboard shows correct names in all languages

Resort names on the powder leaderboard were blank in Japanese. Names now correctly display in Japanese and Chinese when switching seasons.

Niseko United: YouTube video index added

226 YouTube videos indexed for Niseko United, with 82 slope mentions confirmed across 46 runs.

Niseko United: terrain and lift data added

Full slope and lift data for Niseko United is now available, including trail map regions for all four resort areas.

Japanese locale launched

The site is now available in Japanese at /ja/. All pages — resort overview, snow report, terrain map, videos, and the powder leaderboard — are fully translated.

Trail map annotated for Nozawa Onsen

All 48 runs at Nozawa Onsen are now linked to the trail map, making the interactive map fully annotated.

YouTube videos indexed for Hakuba Happo-One

102 YouTube videos for Hakuba Happo-One now have summaries, video types, and slope mentions, with 13 named slopes identified across rider footage.

YouTube videos indexed for Sapporo Kokusai

80 YouTube videos for Sapporo Kokusai now have summaries, video types, and slope mentions, with all 8 named slopes identified across rider footage.

YouTube videos indexed for Nozawa Onsen

115 YouTube videos for Nozawa Onsen now have summaries, video types, and slope mentions, with 19 named slopes identified across rider footage.

YouTube videos indexed for Sapporo Teine

78 YouTube videos for Sapporo Teine now have summaries and slope mentions, with 11 named slopes identified across rider footage.

YouTube videos indexed for Zao Onsen

93 YouTube videos for Zao Onsen now have summaries and slope mentions, with 6 named slopes identified across rider footage.

Video type badges for Tomamu

Videos for Tomamu are now tagged as POV, Vlog, Overview, Review, or Other — helping you find the right type of footage faster.

Video type badges for Nekoma, Appi Kogen, Kiroro

Videos for Nekoma, Appi Kogen, and Kiroro are now tagged as POV, Vlog, Overview, Review, or Other — helping you find the right type of footage faster.

Video type badges for Furano, Rusutsu, Myoko Suginohara

Videos for Furano, Rusutsu, and Myoko Suginohara are now tagged as POV, Vlog, Overview, Review, or Other — helping you find the right type of footage faster.

Cleaner video cards with duration overlay

Video cards now show duration directly on the thumbnail (like YouTube), and the stats row is easier to read with views and year separated cleanly from channel info.

Video page redesigned as a terrain scouting tool

The per-resort video page is now organised by slope — browse featured runs with stats and rider excerpts, filter by difficulty, and jump directly to videos for any slope you want to scout.

New Terrain tab with run table

Resorts with slope data now show a Terrain tab where you can explore every run's length, vertical drop, angle, and aspect — and jump straight to related videos.

Snow report sections now explain what the data means for your trip

Each section on the snow report page now has a short description explaining what the data shows and how to use it when planning a trip.

Map sidebar now shows both slope length and vertical drop

Each run in the terrain map sidebar now shows both its slope length (↔) and vertical drop (↓), making it easier to compare runs at a glance.

Kandatsu: japow index now showing correctly

Kandatsu's powder quality index was missing due to ERA5 climate data not being imported on launch. Now fixed.

Kandatsu Ski Resort now live

Kandatsu Ski Resort in Niigata is now publicly accessible on the site.

Nozawa Onsen: YouTube videos indexed and reviewed

115 YouTube videos indexed for Nozawa Onsen, with 50 slope mentions confirmed across 21 slopes.

Sapporo Kokusai: YouTube videos indexed and reviewed

183 YouTube videos indexed for Sapporo Kokusai, with 24 slope mentions confirmed across 7 slopes.

Hakuba Happo-one: YouTube videos indexed and reviewed

102 YouTube videos indexed for Hakuba Happo-one, with 48 slope mentions confirmed across 13 slopes.

Myoko Suginohara: YouTube videos indexed and reviewed

157 YouTube videos indexed for Myoko Suginohara, with 25 slope mentions confirmed across 14 slopes.

Kandatsu: YouTube videos indexed and reviewed

149 YouTube videos indexed for Kandatsu, with 54 slope mentions confirmed across 17 slopes.

Madarao Kogen: YouTube videos indexed and reviewed

158 YouTube videos indexed for Madarao Kogen, with 80 transcripts analyzed. 26 slope mentions confirmed across 17 slopes.

Hakuba Happo-one: trail map annotation complete

All 47 slopes and lifts (26 runs + 21 lifts) at Hakuba Happo-one Ski Resort have been annotated on the trail map.

Madarao Kogen: trail map annotation complete

All 46 slopes and lifts (37 runs + 9 lifts) at Madarao Kogen Ski Resort have been annotated on the trail map.

Myoko Suginohara: trail map annotation complete

All 20 slopes and lifts (15 runs + 5 lifts) at Myoko Suginohara Ski Resort have been annotated on the trail map.

Tazawako: full terrain data now available

Tazawako Ski Resort now has 18 slopes with DEM statistics, 6 lifts, annotated trail map with 21 regions, and 218 YouTube videos indexed.

Madarao: terrain data now available

Madarao Kogen now has 93 slopes with DEM statistics and 14 lifts. Trail map annotation is in progress.

Sapporo Teine: YouTube video index added

231 YouTube videos for Sapporo Teine have been indexed with 65 slope mentions reviewed.

Rusutsu Resort: YouTube video index added

90 YouTube videos for Rusutsu Resort have been indexed with 67 slope mentions reviewed.

Appi Kogen: trail map optimised

Appi Kogen's trail map has been optimised and pinned to the 2024–25 season layout.

Nekoma: trail map annotation complete

All 49 slopes and lifts (36 runs + 13 lifts) at Nekoma Ski Resort have been annotated on the trail map.

Furano: trail map annotation complete

All 38 slopes and lifts (29 runs + 9 lifts) at Furano Ski Resort have been annotated on the trail map.

Tomamu: trail map annotation complete

All 36 slopes and lifts (30 runs + 6 lifts) at Hoshino Resort Tomamu have been annotated on the trail map.

Sapporo Teine: trail map annotation complete

All 27 slopes and lifts (16 runs + 11 lifts) at Sapporo Teine have been annotated on the trail map.

Kiroro Snow World: trail map annotation complete

All 32 slopes and lifts (23 runs + 9 lifts) at Kiroro Snow World have been annotated on the trail map.

Rusutsu Resort: trail map annotation complete

All 56 slopes and lifts (38 runs + 18 lifts) at Rusutsu Resort have been annotated on the trail map.

Zao Onsen: YouTube video index added

213 videos with transcripts analyzed for slope mentions across Zao Onsen — 21 confirmed mentions covering 5 named runs including Zange-zaka Juhyo Course, Yokokura no Kabe (38°), and Kurohime Connection.

Myoko Suginohara: YouTube video index added

81 videos with transcripts analyzed for slope mentions across Myoko Suginohara's 15 named runs — 31 confirmed mentions covering 14 of 15 slopes.

Powder Reliability Leaderboard

New leaderboard ranks all resorts by historical powder reliability across four season windows — peak, pre-season, late-season, and whole season. Scores combine powder day frequency, base depth reliability, snow quality, and weather conditions.

Formula explanation redesigned as cards

The scoring formula section on the leaderboard is now displayed as a 2-column card grid, with each metric's name, weight, and description clearly separated.

Valley station warning on leaderboard

Resorts whose JMA weather station sits more than 300 m below the ski area now show a dotted underline on their name. Hover to see the elevation gap — powder day counts at these resorts may be underestimated.

Base Reliability now uses on-mountain snow depth

Base Reliability scores now use resort-reported snow depth instead of the JMA valley station depth, which was systematically too low for Honshu resorts like Zao and Appi Kogen.

Snow Quality and Conditions scores fixed

Snow Quality and Conditions were showing 0 for all resorts due to a date format mismatch when merging ERA5 temperature and wind data. Scores now reflect actual conditions.

Nekoma YouTube slope mentions indexed

Indexed 77 YouTube videos for Hoshino Resorts Nekoma, identifying 29 slope mentions across 10 named runs.

Richer chart tooltips

Chart tooltips now appear as a card above the data, with labeled rows, historical context, and color-coded primary values.

Rain Risk now shows ENSO phase breakdown

The Rain Risk section now includes an ENSO impact breakdown showing how rain risk varies between La Niña, Neutral, and El Niño years — with rain percentage and warm rain events per season for each phase.

Rain Risk section on snow report pages

New Rain Risk section shows the percentage of precipitation days with rain by month, plus warm rain event frequency. Helps compare Honshu vs Hokkaido reliability.

Floating table of contents on snow report pages

A floating navigation widget on snow report pages lets you jump between sections with one click. Desktop: left-edge ruler. Mobile: bottom-right button.

Unified section headings across snow report

All section headings on the snow report page now use a shared SectionHeader component for consistent typography.

Snow & Weather section layout redesigned

Data source toggle moved inside the Snow Depth chart header. Season selector and ENSO badges now stack vertically below the section title for a cleaner layout.

Japow Index — powder quality rating for every resort

New Powder Quality section on snow report pages and Japow column on the resorts table. Uses the Kuchera method to estimate snow-to-liquid ratio from snowfall temperature — higher SLR means lighter, drier powder.

Temperature charts now use resort-level ERA5 data

Temperature charts on snow report pages now show ERA5 reanalysis data at resort mid-point elevation instead of low-altitude JMA station data, giving a more accurate picture of on-mountain conditions.

Resort stats now exclude minor slopes

Run count, longest run, and max slope angle on resort overview pages now exclude minor (unnamed) slopes, showing only official named courses for accurate stats.

Videos page slope nav becomes a bottom drawer on mobile

On mobile devices, the slope navigation list now slides up as a bottom drawer instead of taking up the full top of the page, giving more space to video content.

Appi Kogen YouTube video index live

Appi Kogen now has 116 indexed YouTube videos with 59 transcripts and 31 slope mentions across 16 videos, powering the Videos tab.

Snow & Weather charts now default to JMA station data

The Snow & Weather section now shows JMA AMeDAS station data by default for more consistent historical comparison. Resort-reported data is still available via the toggle.

Sapporo Kokusai Ski Resort now live

Sapporo Kokusai is now available with 3D terrain map, 28 slopes, 4 lifts, trail map annotations, and 25+ years of JMA snow data from the Koganeyu station.

Kiroro Snow World Chinese name corrected

Fixed the Traditional Chinese name for Kiroro Snow World from 基羅羅 to the correct 喜樂樂.

Furano Ski Resort YouTube video index live

Furano now has 77 indexed YouTube videos with summaries and 94 confirmed slope mentions across 27 courses, powering the new Videos tab with rider quotes and timestamped references.

Blog snow charts now use a fixed Y-axis for easier comparison

Snow depth charts in blog posts now share the same 200cm scale, making it easier to compare snowfall across resorts at a glance.

Latest updates marquee on resorts page

The resorts page now shows a cycling pill above the title with the latest site updates, fading between recent changelog entries.

Sidebar slopes and lifts now sorted naturally

Slopes within each difficulty group and lifts within each type now sort by name with proper number ordering (e.g. 5 before 30, UC1 before UC10).

Zao Onsen terrain data and trail map live

Zao Onsen now has full 3D terrain with 81 slopes across 14 areas, 39 lifts, and interactive trail map annotations for both Japanese and English maps.

Polygon zone support for tree runs and terrain parks

Tree run zones and terrain parks now render as semi-transparent filled areas on the 3D map, with dedicated sidebar section showing zone type and area. Zones are clickable and display zone-specific stats instead of slope stats.

Appi Kogen terrain data and trail map live

Appi Kogen now has full 3D terrain with 42 slopes (including 5 tree run zones), 8 lifts, and interactive trail map annotations for both Japanese and English maps.

Snow data source toggle now updates charts immediately

Switching between Resort and JMA snow data on the snow report page now visually updates the snow depth and snowfall charts right away. Previously the charts could appear stuck on Resort data until you changed the season.

3D terrain and slope stats live for Hakuba Happo-One

The 3D terrain view for Hakuba Happo-One is now available — interactive satellite map, per-slope elevation, vertical drop, and average/max slope angles for all 39 runs.

Official trail maps added for Hakuba, Kiroro, and Nozawa

The 'Official trail map' view now works for Hakuba Happo-One, Kiroro Snow World, and Nozawa Onsen, joining Furano Ski Resort.

Switch replaces 3D/trail map tabs on resort map pages

Toggling between the 3D view and the official trail map is now a single 'Official trail map' switch instead of two tabs — smaller, clearer, and keyboard-accessible.

Sidebar and trail map now stay in sync when selecting a slope

Clicking a slope in the sidebar zooms and centers it on the official trail map; clicking a slope on the trail map scrolls and highlights its row in the sidebar.

Softer, warmer slope selection highlight

Selected slopes on both the 3D map and the official trail map now use a warm clay tone with a soft gradient glow — easier on the eyes and clearly distinct from the green/blue/red difficulty colors.

Clickable official trail map for Furano Ski Resort

Every slope and lift on Furano's official trail map is now clickable. Tapping a course on the trail map opens its details and keeps the selection when you switch to the 3D view — 25 slopes and 9 lifts mapped.

Added detailed slope and lift data for Hakuba Happo-One

Hakuba Happo-One now has reviewed 3D slope centerlines, lift details, and 2025–26 trail maps, enabling the upcoming 3D terrain view and per-slope stats for the resort.

Official trail map tab on resort map page

Resort map pages now have a tab toggle between 3D View and the official Trail Map. Clickable polygon regions on the trail map open the same sidebar as the 3D view, so selection state is shared between tabs.

7-day snow forecast on every resort's snow report

Each resort's snow report page now shows a 7-day weather forecast at the top. Powered by Open-Meteo with mountain-elevation adjustment, each day shows temperature range, snowfall, feels-like, humidity, wind, and visibility. Toggle between °C and °F.

Fixed redirect links on every page

The footer link and social sharing images pointed to japowdb.com instead of www.japowdb.com, causing unnecessary 307 redirects on every page. Fixed across all pages.

Fixed canonical and hreflang URLs on blog and videos pages

Corrected canonical and hreflang tags that were generating double-locale URLs (e.g. /en/en/blog/...), which could confuse search engines. Also restored bullet point styles in blog articles.

Easier slope list expand on mobile

The slope list bottom sheet on the 3D map page now has a larger touch target and tapping the header also expands it.

Floating table of contents for blog

Blog articles now have a Substack-style floating table of contents. On desktop it appears as a ruler on the left edge reflecting the article structure; on mobile it's a bottom-right button. Click a heading to smooth-scroll with a highlight effect.

Blog articles in search

Blog articles now appear in the Cmd+K search results. Search by title, description, or tags to find articles quickly.

Mobile navigation shows all links

The mobile header now displays Resorts, Blog, and Changelog links instead of hiding them. The search button is compact to save space.

Responsive snow depth chart in blog

The snow depth chart in blog articles now adapts to the screen width instead of using a fixed size, eliminating empty space on mobile.

Share slope route with auto-play

Share a link to any slope or multi-slope route on the 3D map. Recipients see the selected slopes and the slide animation starts automatically.

Nozawa Onsen terrain data

Added slope and lift data for Nozawa Onsen Snow Resort, including 48 official runs across all areas and 19 lifts. 3D terrain map now available.

Faster slope slide animation

Doubled the slide-down-slope animation speed on the 3D terrain map for a smoother viewing experience.

Kiroro Snow World terrain data

Added slope and lift data for Kiroro Snow World, including 50 runs across Asari, Nagamine, and Yoichi areas, plus 10 lifts with capacity data. 3D terrain map now available.

Myoko Suginohara terrain data

Added slope and lift data for Myoko Suginohara ski resort, including 17 official runs and lift operating hours with weekday, weekend, and night skiing schedules.

3D Map column in resort table

The resort table now shows which resorts have a 3D terrain map available, with a direct link to the map page. Region and season columns were removed to reduce clutter.

Nekoma terrain map data

Added slope, lift, and terrain data for Hoshino Resorts Nekoma with 26 runs and 7 lifts.

Tomamu 3D terrain map data

Added slope, lift, and terrain data for Hoshino Resorts Tomamu, enabling the 3D interactive terrain map with 33 runs and 6 lifts.

Hide minor runs from terrain map

Minor runs (connector paths, service roads, and duplicate OSM segments) are no longer drawn on the 3D terrain map or listed in the sidebar.

Site-wide search with ⌘K

Press ⌘K (or Ctrl+K) anywhere on the site to open a search palette and jump straight to any resort, slope, lift, or page. Fuzzy matching works across English, Traditional Chinese, and Japanese names, with grouped results and full keyboard navigation.

Rusutsu Resort 3D terrain map now live

Rusutsu Resort now has a full 3D terrain map with 38 reviewed runs across all 3 mountains (West, East, Isola) and 18 lifts. Browse runs by difficulty, click any slope or lift for detail panels, and explore the resort layout in first-person.

Interactive lifts on 3D terrain map

Lifts are now clickable and labeled on the 3D terrain map. Each lift type has a distinct color, and a new Lifts section in the sidebar lets you browse lifts grouped by type. Clicking a lift flies to it and shows a detail panel with length and capacity.

Resort location map shows distance to nearest city

The overview page now shows a Japan map with the resort's distance and elevation difference from the nearest major city (e.g., '131 km from Sapporo · Resort base 219 m above Sapporo').

Terrain page renamed to Map

The terrain page URL changed from /terrain/ to /map/ with an SEO-optimized title and description for better search visibility.

Dedicated Snow Report page

Snow charts, powder heatmap, snow strip, and ENSO analysis moved from the resort overview to a dedicated Snow Report page. Overview page becomes a compact hub with resort stats and a snow condition summary card linking to the full report.

Resort sub-navigation tabs and 2D/3D terrain toggle

Sticky tab bar under the main navbar for switching between resort sections (Overview, Terrain). Added a 2D/3D toggle button on the terrain map that flattens the view by easing pitch to 0 and hiding hillshade.

Fix mobile terrain page layout

Fixed terrain map not showing on mobile. Map now gets a fixed 500px height, sidebar renders as bottom sheet overlay. Legend rearranged to horizontal row and page padding reduced for more screen real estate.

Slope-adaptive slide speed and route stats

Slide-down speed now varies with terrain — accelerates on steep slopes (up to 2x) and decelerates on flats. Route stats (total length, avg slope, max slope) shown when building a route.

Sortable slope data table on terrain page

Full slope data table below the 3D map with sortable columns: trail code, name, difficulty, length, drop, slope angles, aspect, and surface type. Includes a locate button to jump to any slope on the map.

Fullscreen mode for terrain map

Added a fullscreen button to the terrain map controls that expands the sidebar and map to fill the entire screen.

Slope journey slide-down simulation

Build a multi-run route and slide down in first-person. Select runs via sidebar checkboxes or by clicking slopes on the map, auto-ordered by elevation. Camera glides along the chained centerlines with smooth bearing transitions and adjustable speed (1x-5x).

Terrain map UX overhaul — sidebar, camera controls, satellite imagery

Run sidebar grouped by difficulty with highlight-and-zoom selection, first-person camera at slope top looking downhill, satellite imagery toggle (GSI), elevation labels, fog/atmosphere for depth, and smoother DEM tiles (z16 cubic).

3D terrain map for ski resorts

New terrain page with 3D MapLibre GL map showing DEM elevation data, slope runs color-coded by difficulty, lift lines, and a fly-to first-person slope view.

Added Joetsu Kokusai Ski Resort and completed Takasu Snow Park data

Joetsu Kokusai (上越国際スキー場, Niigata) has been added with 25+ years of historical snow depth and weather data; Takasu Snow Park historical snow depth data is now also complete.

Improved search engine visibility

Resort pages now include structured data (SkiResort schema) for rich search results, and all pages have more descriptive titles and meta descriptions.

Faster navigation to resort list

Visiting japowdb.com now lands directly on the resort list with no redirect delay or loading text.

Snow depth chart Y-axis stays fixed when switching data sources

The snow depth chart no longer rescales when switching between resort reports and JMA station data. Both sources now share the same Y-axis range so comparisons are easier.

Daily snow conditions now sourced from resort reports

The Daily Condition panel on resort pages now shows snow depth, snowfall, snow quality, and ski condition directly from resort-published data instead of third-party weather forecasts.

Smoother resort snow depth curves for season edges

November–December 14 and April snow depth values in the resort chart are now derived from the JMA calibration model instead of raw resort reports, which are unreliable at season open and close.

Snow depth chart extended back to year 2000

Resort snow depth charts now show up to 25 seasons of history (2000–2026) for calibrated resorts. Pre-2014 values are estimated from JMA weather station data using a linear model fitted on the 2014–2026 resort-reported overlap period.

Better snow data for resorts with nearby backup stations

For resorts whose primary JMA station does not report snow depth, the site now falls back to a nearby secondary station on a per-date basis, filling gaps rather than showing no data at all.

Sapporo Teine, Tazawako, Hakuba Happo-one, and Nozawa Onsen now live

Fixed missing snow data for Sapporo Teine and Tazawako by reassigning primary JMA stations to ones that actually instrument snow depth, and made all four resorts publicly visible.

JMA data added for Hakuba, Nozawa Onsen, Sapporo Teine

Added 25 years of JMA weather station records for Hakuba (Hakuba Happo-one), Nozawa Onsen, and Yamaguchi/Sapporo (Sapporo Teine), enabling historical charts for these resorts.

Hakuba Happo-one and Nozawa Onsen added

Hakuba Happo-one and Nozawa Onsen are now listed as tracked resorts with full historical snow data.

Resort map labels and hover previews

The Japan resort map now shows resort name labels next to each pin, and hovering a pin previews the resort's snow depth without needing to click.

Footnote-style stat explanations

Stat and chart info icons now link to numbered footnotes at the bottom of the page instead of hover tooltips, making them readable on mobile.

Changelog page

A new public changelog page at /changelog lists all site updates by date, so you can see what's new at a glance.

Japan resort map

Interactive map of Japan on the resorts page showing all tracked ski resorts, so you can explore and navigate by location.

JMA data added for Zao Onsen, Madarao, Tazawako

Added 25 years of JMA weather station records for Zao Onsen (Yamagata), Madarao (Shinano-machi), and Tazawako (Tazawa and Kakunodate stations).

13 Japanese ski resorts published

Thirteen ski resorts are now publicly available: Niseko United, Rusutsu, Furano, Tomamu, Kiroro, Sapporo Teine, Nekoma, Zao Onsen, Tazawako, Appi Kogen, Madarao, Myoko Suginohara, and Ikenotaira Onsen.

Station–resort elevation difference

Each resort page now shows the elevation difference between the weather station and the resort, so you can judge how representative the snow data is.

JMA data added for Kiroro, Niseko, Nekoma, Myoko, Ikenotaira, Appi Kogen

Added 25 years of JMA weather station records for Kiroro (Akaigawa), Niseko United (Kutchan), Nekoma (Inawashiro), Myoko Suginohara and Ikenotaira Onsen (Sekiyama), and Appi Kogen (Iwate-Matsuo).

Station & resort location map

Interactive map on each resort page showing the weather station and resort location relative to each other.

Site favicon

Added a favicon so the site is easier to find in browser tabs and bookmarks.

Snowfall consistency strip

Visual strip showing how consistently snow fell across the season, day by day.

Powder threshold selector

Adjust the daily snowfall threshold used to define a 'powder day' on the heatmap.

Powder heatmap tooltips

Hover tooltips on the powder day heatmap now show snow depth and daily snowfall for that day.

Homepage hero layout fix

Fixed a layout issue in the homepage hero section.

Powder day heatmap

Calendar heatmap showing which days historically had powder conditions at each resort.

ENSO/ONI climate index data added

Added historical ENSO/ONI climate index data covering all ski seasons since 2000, enabling El Niño and La Niña phase analysis on resort pages.

Chart play button

Animate through seasons automatically with the play button on snow and weather charts.

ENSO season selector with phase badges

The ENSO chart season selector now shows El Niño, La Niña, and Neutral phase badges alongside each year.

ENSO/ONI snowfall correlation

New section showing how El Niño and La Niña phases historically correlate with snowfall at each resort.

Resort overview panel redesign

Refreshed resort overview panel with improved layout and clearer information hierarchy.

Initial JMA data for Furano, Rusutsu, Tomamu

Added 25 years of JMA weather station records for Furano, Rusutsu (Kimobetsu), and Tomamu (Shimukappu), forming the first historical dataset powering the snow charts.

Season selector for snow charts

Filter snow charts by ski season using the season selector dropdown.

JMA snow depth & snowfall charts

Historical daily snow depth and snowfall charts for each resort, sourced from Japan Meteorological Agency weather station data.