Karuizawa snow tires needed in early Jan?

My family is thinking of visiting Karuizawa upon arriving at Narita airport 8th January . Our itinerary will be Narita airport => Karuizawa => Tokyo( 3 days ). Will there be snow in this period and are snow tires required ? We will not be visiting any ski resorts, our itinerary include shiraito falls, kyu karuizawa, karuizawa prince outlet. Thanks!

There is a considerable probability to encounter winter driving conditions. Snow tires are strongly recommended. If you are not used to drive in winter conditions, I recommend to use public transportation, instead.

People who donft have winter driving experience often think that you can just put snow tires on a car and it makes driving on snow and ice safe and easy. The truth is, snow tires may give you a little more traction but they really donft help all that much. Winter driving is an acquired skill, and not one to be acquired in a foreign country, on holiday, in an unfamiliar rental vehicle. Itfs just not a safe proposition.

All of those places you want to go are easily accessible by bus or train, too.

Thank you so much for your replies ! We ell go take your advice and go by public transport instead.
Wefre touching down at Narita about 230pm. Would like to get the Tokyo Wide Area Pass. Hopefully itflI be possible to still catch the NEX to Tokyo station at around 15:44. However, I searched Narita airport to Karuizawa on Jorudan and realised that if I missed the 16:52 Hokuriku Shinkansen , I would have to wait till 18:04 for the next train.
I took a look at the Hokuriku shinkansen timetable (link below) and saw that there is suppose to be an Asama 623 at 17:32 but this doesnft show up on the Jorudan search.

(1) Does anyone know which is right?

https://www.eki-net.com/pc/jreast-shinkansenreservation/English/wb/com...


(2) Also, we want to get to Karuizawa as early as possible. Does it make any sense to go by Skyliner to Ueno( and pay extra) for the Hokuriku Shinkansen even though we have the Tokyo wide area pass?


Thank you!

In October, a typhoon caused about ten Hokuriku shinkansen train sets to be destroyed by flooding. As a result, there is a shortage of Asama trains between Tokyo and Nagano, and the timetable has been adjusted, and changes are taking place from time to time. It is best to check with the current timetable on the JR East website because some of the timetable websites are not updated accordingly:
https://www.jreast.co.jp/e/

The timetable valid after November 30 is here:
https://www.jreast.co.jp/aas/1115hokuriku_eg.pdf

As you can see, there is also a departure at 17:32

Thank you Uji! Once again, youfve been so helpful!! Glad to have this useful and updated information!!