Japan's Snow Season Is Front-Loaded at Every Altitude. The Alps' Is Not. Japan Still Has More March Snow Below 1,500 m.

Corrected on 12 September 2026. An earlier version of this article, published at this address on 10 September, claimed that the difference between Japan’s season and the Alps’ disappears once you compare ski areas at the same altitude. That was measured over three winters. Over nine to twelve winters it does not disappear — it narrows a little and persists at every altitude. The conclusion changed, so we rewrote the article. A companion piece comparing peak months across continents has been withdrawn for the same reason and will not return as written. What went wrong is explained in our March article.

We count snowfall month by month at 395 Japanese and 973 Alpine ski areas, the same way everywhere, over the most recent nine to twelve winters. Here is the national shape of each season, with the two big American regions for reference.

	Ski areas	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar	March as % of January
Japan	395	68	82	58	45	55%
The Alps	973	58	63	49	54	86%
US Rockies	123	41	37	41	43	116%
Sierra & Cascades	84	86	77	79	59	77%

Figures are median centimetres per month.

January is the biggest month in both Japan and the Alps. What differs is what happens after it. Japan loses nearly half of its January by March. The Alps lose about a seventh.

Matching the altitude does not close the gap

The obvious explanation is that Japanese ski areas are low — their median sits at 753 m against the Alps’ 1,489 m — and low ski areas lose March to rain. That is part of it. It is not most of it.

Elevation	Japan: ski areas	Japan: Mar as % of Jan	Alps: ski areas	Alps: Mar as % of Jan
600–900 m	86	52%	49	57%
900–1,200 m	72	52%	181	63%
1,200–1,500 m	46	60%	261	77%
1,500 m and above	36	76%	450	90%

Both columns rise with altitude, so height matters in both ranges. But at every height the Alps keep more of their winter. A Japanese ski area above 1,500 m holds its March about as well as an Alpine one between 1,200 and 1,500 m.

The reason is the machine that makes Japanese snow in the first place. The Sea of Japan snowbelt runs on the winter monsoon — cold Siberian air crossing comparatively warm water, loading up, and unloading on the first mountains it meets. That arrangement peaks in January and shuts down through February and March, regardless of how high the ski area is. The Alps are fed by Atlantic and Mediterranean storm systems that keep arriving into spring.

Then look at the centimetres

Elevation	Japan, March	The Alps, March
600–900 m	47 cm	25 cm
900–1,200 m	49 cm	35 cm
1,200–1,500 m	49 cm	49 cm
1,500 m and above	57 cm	64 cm

Below 1,200 m, Japan gets more March snow than the Alps despite keeping a smaller share of its winter. It starts from so much more — 91 to 95 cm in January in those bands, against 44 to 56 cm — that half of it is still ahead. The two draw level around 1,200–1,500 m, and only above 1,500 m do the Alps pull ahead.

This is the same point our March article makes within Japan: the percentage and the centimetres point in opposite directions, and you ski on the centimetres.

Country by country

	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar	Mar as % of Jan
Austria	58	69	51	49	71%
Switzerland	78	72	50	62	86%
France	57	65	51	58	89%
Italy	50	39	46	49	126%
Japan	68	82	58	45	55%

Italy is the only one of these where March outdoes January, and it is the smallest January on the table. The southern side of the Alps picks up Mediterranean systems that are more active in spring than in midwinter. Austria, the most northerly and the most continental, is the closest of the four to Japan’s shape — and still well short of it.

What to do with this

In January, Japan wins outright. Its median ski area takes 82 cm in the month, more than any Alpine country takes in any month on this page.

In March, choose by altitude and by the centimetres, not by the continent. Below about 1,200 m Japan is still the snowier choice. Above 1,500 m the Alps are, and French and Swiss high resorts in particular keep their winter well into spring.

If you are comparing a March trip to Niseko with one to Austria, you are comparing two regions that both fall away after January. Hokkaido keeps 66% of a January of 58 cm; Austria keeps 71% of a January of 69 cm. Neither is a late-season specialist.

How this was measured

Monthly snowfall comes from the ERA5 reanalysis, summed by calendar month and averaged across the most recent winters available to us for each ski area: eleven for Japan, twelve for Austria, France and the United States, ten to eleven for Italy and eight to nine for Switzerland. The Swiss figures rest on fewer winters than the rest and are the softest on the page. Every figure is a median across the ski areas in its group.

Why the year count matters so much here is the reason this article was rewritten. A monthly figure asks which of two months is larger, and a handful of shared years can answer that wrongly for a whole region at once. Nine winters is not perfect, but it is a different order of evidence from three.

The 0–600 m band is left out of the altitude tables because the Alps have only six ski areas that low.

Elevation is one representative point per ski area, not the top of the lifts. A resort with a low village and high terrain is filed by the low number.

A grid cell is roughly 30 km across, so neighbouring ski areas share a measurement — which matters more in the Alps, where valleys are dense.

We have checked the model against ground stations in Japan and not in Europe. Against 63 Japanese stations it returns about 56% of what they record. We have no European equivalent, so the percentages within each range are the robust part of this article, and the centimetre comparisons between Japan and the Alps are the part to hold more loosely.