Grasshopper’s Weekly Japan Forecast – Winter to Make a Comeback With Two Big Snowstorms
Mountainwatch | The Grasshopper
Valid Thursday 30thJanuary to Thursday 6thFebruary
Just when we had lost all hope, winter will make a comeback this week and take Japan by storm. There’ll be two storms exactly, which will affect the entire archipelago. So, for this forecast, I can conveniently clump all areas into one, rather than split them up as I usually do.
Snow totals will be large, and if I was to hazard a calculated guess, we could be looking at 60-80cm down low in central Honshu and over 1-1.5m up higher. Northern Honshu and Hokkaido are likely to range mostly around 50-100cm.
Storm #1
The “Monster from the South” that I talked about last week will prowl along the east coast of Hokkaido today as it skulks off into the deep dark north. Snow will become widespread throughout Japan later this morning, but snow levels will be as high as 500m over northern Honshu and Hokkaido, and up around 1200m over central Honshu.
Fortunately, cold air from the north will pile on tonight, turning the snow into lovely Japow and lowering it to base levels, with heavy falls particularly in central Honshu and northern Hokkaido.
Light to moderate Japow will continue through Friday and Saturday, and eventually pin back to light flurries during Sunday as a ridge of high pressure builds.
Storm #2
Monday will be an epic powder day with some blue sky as the next storm spins up in the Sea of Japan. The exact movement of this beast is yet unknown but will be towards the northeast.
We might briefly have a period of warm southerlies and rain early Tuesday, before freezing W-NW winds come swooping in, dishing out moderate to heavy Japow through the rest of Tuesday, Wednesday and possibly Thursday.
Have a great week, and stay safe amongst the storms. See you next Thursday!
