No snow yet. Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear here once snow starts to fall. Until then, the long-run record comes first.
- Elevation
- 1,263–1,983 m
- Across
- 3.9 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 ↗
Domaine Skiable Saint-Léger-Les-Mélèzes, in France, runs from 1,263 m at the base to 1,983 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 3.9 km across, with 20 marked runs and 10 lifts (about 15 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 161 cm of snowfall a season, 1,527th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 178th in France. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2017/18 (303 cm), brought more than 3 times as much as the leanest, 2018/19 (89 cm). December brings as much snow as January here (42 and 42 cm on average).
Below are links to its official live camera.
How much snow it gets
Measured by us across 3,069 ski areas by one identical method. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
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 area | Distance | Seasonal snowfall | World rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ancelle | 4.0 km | 145 cm | 1729 |
| Serre Eyraud | 6.0 km | 244 cm | 772 |
| Chaillol | 6.7 km | 256 cm | 686 |
| Orcières Merlette | 12.0 km | 327 cm | 370 |
| Laye | 12.0 km | 197 cm | 1174 |
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.
Run map
Slope shape, difficulty and lift types
The shape of the mountain
Which way the slopes face
Only 48% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. More of the terrain faces the sun.
By difficulty
Lift types
- Platter6
- Chairlift2
- Magic carpet2
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
Month by month, the most snow falls in December. March brings 98% of January’s snowfall. That is a gentler fall than the median for ski areas in France (77%). For skiing, though, the amount matters more than the share: March brings 41 cm, less than the median of 55 cm.
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 161 cm, and 8 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2018/19 with 89 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 303 cm (3.4 times as much).
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.
More places to look
Guides covering France
- A Black Run in Colorado and a Black Run in Austria Are Not the Same Thing. The Maps Prove It. Across 2,888 ski areas: 39% of American runs are graded advanced or harder, and 9% of Austrian ones. Nobody thinks Austria is four times gentler. The grades are measuring different things.
- How Big Are Japan's Ski Areas? Smaller Than the Alps, Snowier per Kilometre Measured across nearly 1,800 ski areas: the median Japanese one has 12 km of piste against France's 25. What Japan has instead is 25 cm of seasonal snow for every kilometre of run — more than two and a half times France and three times the United States.