Hakuba Norikura Onsen Snow Resort Snow Report
白馬乗鞍温泉スキー場
Hakuba Norikura Onsen Snow Resort averages 608 cm of snowfall a season and peaks at 261 cm of settled base, measured across 26 seasons of Japan Meteorological Agency records. That works out to roughly 17 powder days a season — days when at least 20 cm fell. The charts below break that down by month and by season, alongside the ENSO pattern each season fell under.
Weather Data Source
Snow depth and temperature data from the nearest JMA AMeDAS station.
Quickly judge whether this resort fits your trip. See how snowy it gets on average, how long the season runs, and whether powder days are rare or common here.
7-Day Forecast
Decide if this week is worth a trip. Check the snowfall column first: fresh snow in the next day or two is the clearest sign of good conditions.
2025-26 Season Recap
10th deepest of 12 seasons
Peak 240cm · avg 302cm
Powder Days
Find the month most likely to deliver powder. Higher numbers mean better odds. Each cell counts powder days — days with snowfall over your chosen threshold. Turn on the quality filter to keep only the cold, dry days.
| 2025-26 | 2024-25 | 2023-24 | 2022-23 | 2021-22 | 2020-21 | 2019-20 | 2018-19 | 2017-18 | 2016-17 | 2015-16 | 2014-15 | 2013-14 | 2012-13 | 2011-12 | 2010-11 | 2009-10 | 2008-09 | 2007-08 | 2006-07 | 2005-06 | 2004-05 | 2003-04 | 2002-03 | 2001-02 | 2000-01 | 1999-00 | Avg | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | — | 0.3 |
| Dec | 3 | 10 | 2 | 7 | 9 | 7 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 11 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 9 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 1 | — | 4.1 |
| Jan | 11 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 12 | 8 | 4 | 11 | 11 | 13 | 7 | 9 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 9 | 9 | 1 | 6.3 |
| Feb | 5 | 8 | 4 | 6 | 13 | 6 | 7 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 7 | 4.3 |
| Mar | 2 | 3 | 7 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 2.2 |
| Apr | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
Snowfall Consistency
Avoid booking during historically dry spells. Scan the grid to spot weeks that tend to go without snow, then plan your trip around the more reliable windows.
Sky conditions, winter by winter
One mark per day from December 1 to March 31, one row per winter. Read across for a season, down a column for the same date in different years.
8 clear days How much of a typical winter here is actually clear, and when those days fall.
Select a day to read its date and sky.
Showing the 5 most recent winters of 27.
The typical winter
How the chance of a Clear day moves through the season, by half-month, across every winter the archive holds.
1–15
16+
1–15
16+
1–15
16+
1–15
16+
A Clear day is most likely in Mar 16+ — the stretch the grid above opens on.
A winter here means December 1 to March 31. A day is Clear at or below 30% modelled cloud cover, Partly Cloudy from 31 to 79%, and Overcast at 80% and above. A day carrying 5 cm or more of falling snow is Snow before any cloud value is read. Cloud cover comes from the ERA5 reanalysis archive for this resort’s weather cell. The check comes from hours of sunshine measured at the nearest reporting station, which sits lower down the valley. Checked against sunshine measured at Hakuba. The same station validates Hakuba Cortina Snow Resort, Hakuba Goryu & Hakuba47, Hakuba Happo-One Snow Resort, Hakuba Iwatake Snow Field and Tsugaike Mountain Resort. How closely the modelled cloud tracks the station’s measured sunshine, over the 3,243 winter days both sources hold a value for. Below the cut, the figure is stated as a range instead of a count. The classification describes sky cover over the resort’s weather cell, not visibility measured on the hill. A resort can sit in cloud at altitude on a day its cell reads clear.
Powder Quality
Know whether the snow here is worth chasing. Colder Hokkaido resorts produce lighter, drier powder that floats and turns differently than the wet, heavy snow found further south.
Colder snowfall temperatures produce larger ice crystals with more trapped air — lighter, drier powder.
Rain Risk
Avoid months when rain is likely to strip the snowpack. Even one warm rain event can destroy days of accumulated powder, so knowing the risk by month helps you book smarter.
Percentage of precipitation days where rain falls instead of snow. Warm rain events (>5mm rain, temp >0°C) can destroy the snowpack.
Snow & Weather
Track whether this season is shaping up above or below average. Browse past seasons to spot trends, useful for timing a last-minute trip or understanding a resort's range.
Snow Depth
Source: resort report
Daily Snowfall
Source: JMA AMeDAS
Temperature
Source: ERA5 reanalysis at 1020m (resort level)
Wind Speed
Source: JMA AMeDAS
Snow by ENSO Phase
Across Chubu, one unit of ONI moves seasonal snowfall by about −8.6% and winter temperature by about +0.5 °C. Hakuba Norikura Onsen Snow Resort shares that regional line; the figures below are sized to its own station.
| What moves | At the slider | Per ONI unit | Signal strength |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seasonal snowfall (Nov–Apr) | −12%normal 591 cm≈ −71 cm | −8.6% | explains 11% |
| Snow depth at Hakuba, 703 m | −21%normal 36 cm≈ −7 cm | −14.8% | explains 8% |
| Winter temperature (Dec–Feb) | +0.7 °Cnormal −1.7 °C | +0.5 °C | explains 28% |
| Snow consistency (days with snow, Dec–Feb) | −11%normal 61 days≈ −6 days | −7.5% | explains 18% |
| Longest dry spell (Dec–Feb) | +19%normal 15 days≈ +3 days | +13.5% | explains 8% |
Slopes are fitted per region from the primary-station record and are the same for every resort in Chubu. Stations per row, in order: 7 · 7 · 7 · 7 · 7. Winters 2000-01 to 2025-26, 26 in all. Sources: NOAA CPC ONI, JMA. Signal strength is the share of winter-to-winter variation the regional line explains. It is not a probability.
Season Zones
A full base is a half-month whose mean snow depth reached at least half of that station’s typical peak; a thin base, at least a quarter. Each line is the share of winters that cleared the mark, so every station counts by its own timing rather than its own centimetres.
Tolerable or better: Jan 16 – Feb 15 across all winters, Jan 1 – Mar 15 9 winters
Too few winters in this phase to draw on their own, so the chart shows every winter.
- full base
- thin base
- all winters, for reference
- Hakuba, this resort’s station
- peak
- tolerable
- marginal
- dangerous
A shoulder half-month rests on as few as nine winters, so read the zone rather than the percentage point.
| Half-month | Full base | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Nov 1 | 0% | dangerous |
| Nov 16 | 0% | dangerous |
| Dec 1 | 2% | dangerous |
| Dec 16 | 14% | dangerous |
| Jan 1 | 51% | marginal |
| Jan 16 | 57% | tolerable |
| Feb 1 | 63% | tolerable |
| Feb 16 | 52% | marginal |
| Mar 1 | 46% | marginal |
| Mar 16 | 32% | marginal |
| Apr 1 | 6% | dangerous |
| Apr 16 | 0% | dangerous |
Strongest winters on record
What Hakuba recorded in the three strongest El Niño and three strongest La Niña winters since 2000-01, as departures from its own normal. The slider does not change this table.
| Winter | ONI | Snowfall | Depth | Temperature | Snow days | Dry spell |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | +2.63 | −49% | −67% | +1.2 °C | −28% | +43% |
| 2023-24 | +1.92 | −20% | −67% | +1.2 °C | −52% | +37% |
| 2009-10 | +1.50 | +34% | +26% | +0.5 °C | +16% | +9% |
| Winter | ONI | Snowfall | Depth | Temperature | Snow days | Dry spell |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-08 | −1.64 | +37% | +23% | −0.5 °C | +19% | −4% |
| 2010-11 | −1.31 | +14% | +6% | −0.3 °C | +8% | +16% |
| 2020-21 | −0.91 | −8% | −39% | +0.7 °C | +13% | +2% |
The regional line is a tendency, not a promise: a listed El Niño winter can beat normal. The record starts with winter 2000-01, which is why 1997-98 is not here.
Each bar spans that phase’s driest winter to its snowiest. The tall line marks the average; the short one marks the level a quarter of that phase’s winters fell below. The darker stretch is snowfall only an El Niño winter has reached here.
At Hakuba Norikura Onsen Snow Resort, El Niño does not cap how good a winter gets here. It lowers the worst case: the driest El Niño winter on record fell to 226 cm, while no La Niña winter dropped below 409 cm.
Source: NOAA CPC ONI
Powder Reliability Leaderboard
The score tells you how reliably this resort delivers powder, not just in a great season but across many seasons. It combines four factors measured from historical data: how often powder days actually happen, how consistently the snowpack builds and holds depth, how dry and light the snow tends to be, and how often wind ruins powder days. A high score means your chances of hitting good snow are strong across a typical trip, not only during lucky windows.
How scores are calculated
average powder days per season, where a powder day has ≥ 20 cm of new snow from either the weather station OR the resort's own day-over-day depth gain (whichever catches it). Normalised to a per-window ceiling (20 days in peak season, 30 over the whole season).
how consistently the resort holds a deep base. For each season, the share of reported days (Dec 15 – Mar 31) with ≥ 150 cm of resort-reported on-mountain depth scores on a smooth scale — from 0 at ≤ 40% of days deep to full credit at ≥ 55% — then averaged across seasons. Adapted from Witmer 1986 / Abegg 1996; uses on-mountain depth, not the valley station.
fraction of snowfall days where ERA5 daily mean temperature ≤ −5°C at resort elevation, a proxy for dry, high snow-to-liquid-ratio powder (Kuchera & Ely 2004). ERA5 temperature is lapse-rate corrected to each resort's mid-point elevation. Surface temperature is an approximation of the full vertical profile.
fraction of powder days calmer than the resort's own typical winter wind (below its 75th-percentile ERA5 wind). A relative anchor is used because absolute ERA5 grid wind reflects the model's 9 km terrain cell, not on-slope sheltering. Weighted low and best read as a hint, not a ranking factor.