November 2025 Update:

Every winter we hear those magic words “La Niña” bandied around, with people hoping that THIS will be the winter to top all winters – a Gōsetsu no fuyu – heavy snowfall winter.

Weather being weather though, there is a lot more to this than just praying for La Niña. If we cut to the chase, after nearly 2 decades in Japan here’s our advice – don’t fuss over forecasts!

Having said that, lets look at this year’s winter forecast, from the Japan Meteorological Agency (as of Nov 10 2025):

The (current) La Niña-like conditions are likely to continue toward the early boreal winter.

However, the La Niña-like conditions will rapidly weaken. Therefore, it is more likely (80%) that ENSO-neutral conditions will persist until the early boreal spring.

Before we dig into what this means for your Japow trip, let’s have a deeper look at what’s been happening in Hokkaido for the past 13 years. What you’ll see is that La Niña is not the only recipe for oyuki – deep powder days.

There are definitely some interesting trends in the table above (even though it’s a small data sample):

We can see that Niseko seems to favour higher snowfalls in neutral & La Niña patterns in general. Furano is much less predictable and scores above average snowfall in all patterns.

As you can see in the chart above, last winter both Niseko and Furano ended up with below average totals for the winter, however the devil is in the details. Overall plenty of classic deep Japow turns were had, but a prominent dry spell (7 days+) at the end of January in peak time was somewhat unusual, although not unheard of (would anywhere else in the world even blink at a week without snow!?). This goes a long way as to why the overall snowfall totals for last winter were lower than usual.

In last year’s season outlook for 2024/25, the JMA called a very similar situation (to the coming winter) – La Niña like conditions early on, then trending towards Neutral for Jan and Feb – and this is what played out. Last December we saw 311cm fall in Hirafu and 173cm in Furano – both at base area level and within normal range (Snow Japan data). Neither total would be considered higher than average for December.

The above chart shows we are still tracking towards colder sea temperatures from now into December (which is what we want). When looking at Dec-Feb for the coming winter the JMA is predicting the following:

The current long range temperature forecast is showing a 40% chance we may see higher than normal temperatures for Dec-Feb in northern Japan, and more probability of near normal winter temperatures in central and southern Japan.

We are also seeing a 40% chance of above average snow totals over winter for much of the west coast across Japan.

The real question is how will this all be distributed across those 3 months. Once again we’re waiting on updated data from the JMA in early December before we say any more about this. Or more likely don’t say anymore… as resorts will be open by then and we’ll be busy getting amongst it and not worrying about things we can’t control! We may be keeping an eye on the polar vortex movement this winter though…..

For all of you fellow weather nerds out there, the following chart may also pique your interest; all recorded historical El Niño and La Niña Events, defined by Sea Surface Temperature (SST) deviation, in Japan since 1950.

You’ll notice in the above chart that we are currently sitting just below the mean sea surface temperature; if that line continues downward it’s more likely we’ll be entering the La Niña trend.

Whats the big take away then? Japan has some of the lightest powder snow in the world, with more regular snowfall than many places on earth to go along with it. Weather will always be unpredictable, but a trip to Japan will always be memorable!

No matter what happens this year, La Niña weather patterns will always cause a lot of excitement for powder lovers so here’s a simple overview of why “little sister” is a notable cooling event.

As outlined by Ronan Maguire, Whiteroom Lead Avalanche Forecaster:

A La Niña pattern results in cooler-than-average surface temperatures across the equatorial central Pacific Ocean and a rising of the ocean temperatures adjacent to Southeast Asia, which is generating moist air.

All of this moist air tends to create blocking high-pressure systems on the East coast of the Indochina peninsula – Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, etc. These highs then push the cold prevailing westerly winds further North which means we have warm moist air meeting a cold air flow from Siberia which then sees those moisture-rich clouds dump a lot of snow across Hokkaido and the Tohoku region.

Now that we’ve all decided weather is complicated why not jump on a plane and come join us in Japan this winter! While many of our peak season dates are booked solid we still have spots available across the winter season for guided tours, private guided days, resort powder discovery, and private lessons in both our Furano and Niseko base areas! We also have a great range of backcountry rental gear so you can travel light!