No snow yet. Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear once snow is on the ground or forecast.
Typical snowfall
253cm
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
994–1,797 m
Across
3.2 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 ↗
La Chapelle d'Abondance, in France, runs from 994 m at the base to 1,797 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 3.2 km across, with 49 marked runs and 11 lifts (about 27 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 253 cm of snowfall a season, 704th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 99th in France. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2017/18 (392 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2024/25 (193 cm). January is usually the snowiest month, with about 74 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
253cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
193cm
The middle winter of the 12: 242 cm. The best: 392 cm.
World rank
704
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
99
of 244 in France
Elevation rank
169
Highest to lowest, of 244 in France. The centre point sits at 1,327 m, 210 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.
The most snow falls in January. March brings 74% of January’s snowfall.
65cmDec
74cmJan
59cmFeb
55cmMar
Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 253 cm, and 6 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2024/25 with 193 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 392 cm (2.0 times as much). For 26% of the 244 ski areas in France the leanest winter was 2016/17; here it was a different one.
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.