France

Col d'Ornon

Off season
Official site

No snow yet. Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear once snow is on the ground or forecast.

Typical snowfall
326cm

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
1,432 m
Across
5.4 km

Elevation of the ski area’s centre point, taken from a digital elevation model. It is not the base-to-summit range.

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 ↗

Col d'Ornon is a ski area in France, at about 1,432 m. Within 3.3 km of its centre the map shows 22 marked runs and 4 lifts (about 6.1 km of piste).

Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 326 cm of snowfall a season, 378th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 64th in France. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2017/18 (606 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2016/17 (230 cm). March still brings 79 cm on average, close to January, its snowiest month.

The nearest city of any size is Grenoble, about 28 km away in a straight line.

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
326cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
230cm
The middle winter of the 12: 304 cm. The best: 606 cm.
World rank
378
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
64
of 244 in France
Elevation rank
150
Highest to lowest, of 244 in France. The centre point sits at 1,432 m, 105 m below the national median.

Compared with what is nearby

Within 50 km in a straight line. Ski areas in the same weather-model cell (about 30 km across) get the same figure.

Ski areaDistanceSeasonal snowfallWorld rank
L'Alpe du Grand Serre10.0 km334 cm330
Domaine Skiable Chamrousse13.0 km339 cm309
Alpe d'Huez Grand Domaine14.0 km423 cm144
Les Deux Alpes15.0 km419 cm149
Les Signaraux21.0 km135 cm1877

Runs and lifts

Counted from the marked runs and lifts on the map, within 3.3 km of the centre of the ski area. These are not the resort’s own published figures.

Marked runs
22
Lifts
4
Mapped length
6.1km

By difficulty

Novice 3
Easy 4
Intermediate 9
Advanced 3

Lift types

  • Platter3
  • Rope tow1

Source: OpenStreetMap (ODbL 1.0). How finely ski areas are drawn varies by region, so treat the counts as indicative. Difficulty uses the European grades, which do not map onto North American green / blue / black.

When it falls, and how winters differ

Month by month

The most snow falls in January. March brings 88% of January’s snowfall. That is a gentler fall than the median for ski areas in France (77%). In amount, March brings 79 cm, more than the median of 55 cm.

89cm
Dec
90cm
Jan
69cm
Feb
79cm
Mar
Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters

Winter by winter

Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 326 cm, and 8 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2016/17 with 230 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 606 cm (2.6 times as much).

244
285
230
606
289
400
340
255
244
319
322
376
14/1515/1616/1717/1818/1919/2020/2121/2222/2323/2424/2525/26

Snowfall each winter (December–March total). The dashed line is the average; the numbers mark the leanest and the biggest winter.

Live cameras

Footage remains the copyright of each operator. JAPANSNOWLINE neither stores nor redistributes it.

Map

The weather map, and where it sits among nearby ski areas.

Official piste map ↗

Other booking sites: Booking.com ↗ · Agoda ↗

Guides covering France

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