France

Col de l'Arzelier

Off season

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

Typical snowfall
166cm

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
1,157–1,483 m
Across
1.5 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.

Col de l'Arzelier, in France, runs from 1,157 m at the base to 1,483 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 1.5 km across, with 4 marked runs (about 2.5 km of piste in all).

Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 166 cm of snowfall a season, 1,457th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 174th in France. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2017/18 (266 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2022/23 (104 cm). January is usually the snowiest month, with about 48 cm.

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
166cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
104cm
The middle winter of the 12: 154 cm. The best: 266 cm.
World rank
1457
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
174
of 244 in France
Elevation rank
162
Highest to lowest, of 244 in France. The centre point sits at 1,364 m, 173 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
Villard de Lans - Corrençon4.8 km176 cm1356
Colline des Bains8.7 km176 cm1356
Gresse en Vercors12.0 km158 cm1564
Montagnes de Lans13.0 km155 cm1601
Les Signaraux14.0 km135 cm1877

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
4
Run length
2.5km
Vertical
326m
Top 1,483 m · base 1,157 m

Run map

NoviceEasyIntermediate Lift
North is up. Runs are coloured by difficulty; black lines are lifts.
Run map

Drag to move around, and use + and − to zoom. On a phone, swipe to move and pinch to zoom in further.

Slope shape, difficulty and lift types

The shape of the mountain

Longest run on the map1.1 km
Steepest pitch29°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs16.1°

Which way the slopes face

North 0%
East 74%
South 26%
West 0%

74% 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.

By difficulty

Novice 1 · 0.1 km
Easy 1 · 1.1 km
Intermediate 2 · 1.4 km

See past trail maps on Skimap.org ↗

Source: OpenSkiMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0). How finely ski areas are drawn varies by region, so treat the counts as indicative. Vertical is the difference between the highest and lowest points of the mapped runs and lifts.

When it falls, and how winters differ

Month by month

The most snow falls in January. March brings 73% of January’s snowfall. That is in line with the median for ski areas in France (77%). In amount, March brings 35 cm, less than the median of 55 cm.

45cm
Dec
48cm
Jan
38cm
Feb
35cm
Mar
Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters

Winter by winter

Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 166 cm, and 8 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2022/23 with 104 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 266 cm (2.6 times as much). For 26% of the 244 ski areas in France the leanest winter was 2016/17; here it was a different one.

157
138
113
266
183
165
239
150
104
133
134
214
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.

Map

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

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