Start with overnight snowfall and wind direction. The headline number only helps once you know whether cold air banking into the Aizu and Bandai hills is the pattern to watch. With a 1050 to 1500 metre elevation band and 450 metres of vertical, the sheltered trees make modest reloads feel deeper than the raw number. A seasonal baseline around 8 metres means small clean refills matter more than waiting for a giant number. The swing variable is wind: light flow lets the trees refill, while a hard blast strips the exposed entrances. Use the access rules on the day as the limit, then let the wind and temperature decide how far to push it. Chase it when 5 to 15 cm lands overnight with light to moderate wind; if gusts climb, make it a sheltered-tree day.
See which resorts in Fukushima are getting the best 24 hour totals and the next two days of snow.
