Japan or the Alps for March Skiing? It Depends on the Altitude

We count snowfall month by month at 397 Japanese and 963 Alpine ski areas, the same way everywhere, over the same twelve winters (2014/15 to 2025/26). 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	397	68	81	56	46	57%
The Alps	963	56	63	50	53	84%
US Rockies	113	41	37	41	43	116%
Sierra & Cascades	71	86	77	80	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 over two fifths of its January by March. The Alps lose about a sixth.

Matching the altitude does not close the gap

The obvious explanation is that Japanese ski areas are low — their median sits at 766 m against the Alps’ 1,475 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	88	54%	54	57%
900–1,200 m	72	53%	178	63%
1,200–1,500 m	46	60%	262	75%
1,500 m and above	36	75%	462	91%

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	48 cm	24 cm
900–1,200 m	49 cm	36 cm
1,200–1,500 m	50 cm	48 cm
1,500 m and above	58 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, 89 to 93 cm in January in those bands against 41 to 57 cm, that keeping half of it still beats the Alps. Japan is still marginally ahead at 1,200–1,500 m, and only above 1,500 m do the Alps pull clear.

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	67	51	49	73%
Switzerland	63	74	56	60	81%
France	57	64	51	55	86%
Italy	46	39	46	48	123%
Japan	68	81	56	46	57%

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 81 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 69% of a January of 59 cm; Austria keeps 73% of a January of 67 cm. Neither is a late-season specialist.

How this was measured

Monthly snowfall comes from the ERA5 reanalysis, summed by calendar month across the same twelve winters, 2014/15 to 2025/26, for every ski area on this page. Every figure is a median across the ski areas in its group. The Alps here are the 963 ski areas in Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy and Slovenia; the US Rockies and the Sierra and Cascades are cut by longitude.

Why the year count matters so much here is the reason this article was rewritten once already. 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.

The 0–600 m band is left out of the altitude tables because the Alps have only seven 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.

Sources: Open-Meteo historical weather data, based on the ERA5 reanalysis (Copernicus Climate Change Service).

Revision history

• 29 September 2026. Every group now uses the same twelve winters (the Swiss figure moved from 86% to 81% of January surviving into March); the conclusion did not change.
• 12 September 2026. An earlier version, built on three winters, said the gap with the Alps disappears at equal altitude. Over twelve winters it narrows a little and persists, so the article was rewritten, and a companion piece on peak months was withdrawn. What went wrong.