No snow yet. Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear once snow is on the ground or forecast.
Typical snowfall
290cm
A weather-model figure, worked out the same way for every ski area, and lower than what actually falls. Use it to compare ski areas, not against the resort’s own totals. How we measure →
Elevation
1,419–1,799 m
Across
1.9 km
We do not show a snow depth here. The weather model we use reports snow lying on the ground — it knows nothing about grooming or snowmaking, and it is not the base depth a ski area publishes. In Japan we can check our figures against 234 weather stations. Outside Japan there is nothing to check them against, so we do not print a number we have not verified.Snow report on the official site ↗
Ōhau Snow Fields, in New Zealand, runs from 1,419 m at the base to 1,799 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 1.9 km across, with 11 marked runs and 3 lifts (about 5.6 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 290 cm of snowfall a season, 521st (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 2nd in New Zealand. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2022 (452 cm), brought more than 4 times as much as the leanest, 2016 (100 cm). Snowfall days average −2.5°C at mid-mountain, and its snow-quality score ranks 5th of 25 in New Zealand.
How much snow it gets
Modelled from weather data the same way at all 3,069 ski areas we cover. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Seasonal snowfall
290cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
100cm
The middle winter of the 12: 304 cm. The best: 452 cm.
World rank
521
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
2
of 26 in New Zealand
Elevation rank
8
Highest to lowest, of 26 in New Zealand. The centre point sits at 1,717 m, 98 m above the national median.
Quality rank
5
of 25 in New Zealand
Temp when snowing
−2.5°C
Japanese median: −3.6°C
Rain days
25%
Japanese median: 16%
Days over 5 cm
16%
Japanese median: 15%
Wind when snowing
15km/h
Average daily peak, 10 m above ground across a model grid cell; not the wind on ridges or lift tops
Dryness32
Frequency47
Freedom from rain35
Calm when snowing (model grid)100
The tick marks the median across every Japanese ski area we measure. All four bars run the same way — longer is better.
The quality score leaves out how much snow falls (it uses temperature, frequency, rain and wind).
Runs and lifts
Counted from the runs and lifts drawn on OpenStreetMap, within the boundary of the ski area. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Marked runs
11
Run length
5.6km
Lifts
3
Vertical
381m
Top 1,799 m · base 1,419 m
Run map
EasyIntermediateAdvancedLift
North is up. Runs are coloured by difficulty; black lines are lifts.Slope shape, difficulty and lift types
The shape of the mountain
Longest run on the map1.3 km
Steepest pitch32°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs15.1°
Which way the slopes face
North5%
East53%
South42%
West0%
58% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east; plenty of the terrain faces the sun as well, so the lean is modest.
The most snow falls in September. September brings as much as July, or more. In amount, September brings 86 cm, more than the median of 32 cm.
48cmJun
71cmJul
67cmAug
86cmSep
Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 290 cm, and 6 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2016 with 100 cm; the biggest was 2022 with 452 cm (4.5 times as much).
181
100
333
238
216
326
356
452
235
413
345
282
’15’16’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25’26
Snowfall each winter (June–September total). The dashed line is the average; the numbers mark the leanest and the biggest winter.
Argentina's median ski area gets 348 cm a season — more than Japan's 249 cm, and the highest median of any country we measure with ten or more ski areas. New Zealand's median is 144 cm. The English-language northern-summer ski trip points at the wrong hemisphere's end.