France

Le Semnoz

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
192cm

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
1,412–1,693 m
Across
4.6 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 ↗

Le Semnoz, in France, runs from 1,412 m at the base to 1,693 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 4.6 km across, with 27 marked runs and 9 lifts (about 16 km of piste in all).

Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 192 cm of snowfall a season, 1,230th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 157th in France. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2017/18 (329 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2015/16 (123 cm). January is usually the snowiest month, with about 59 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
192cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
123cm
The middle winter of the 12: 183 cm. The best: 329 cm.
World rank
1230
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
157
of 244 in France
Elevation rank
96
Highest to lowest, of 244 in France. The centre point sits at 1,657 m, 120 m above 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
Montmin - Col de la Forclaz11.0 km205 cm1105
Le Revard15.0 km207 cm1081
La Sambuy Seythenex17.0 km204 cm1117
Col de Plainpalais18.0 km207 cm1081
Aillon-Margériaz18.0 km207 cm1081

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
27
Run length
16km
Lifts
9
Vertical
281m
Top 1,693 m · base 1,412 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 map1.7 km
Steepest pitch26°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs8.9°

Which way the slopes face

North 29%
East 35%
South 14%
West 22%

64% 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 15 · 7.5 km
Easy 4 · 2.8 km
Intermediate 6 · 4.9 km
Advanced 2 · 1.1 km

Lift types

  • Platter7
  • Chairlift1
  • Mixed gondola/chair1

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 71% of January’s snowfall. That is in line with the median for ski areas in France (77%). In amount, March brings 42 cm, less than the median of 55 cm.

53cm
Dec
59cm
Jan
38cm
Feb
42cm
Mar
Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters

Winter by winter

Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 192 cm, and 8 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2015/16 with 123 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 329 cm (2.7 times as much). For 26% of the 244 ski areas in France the leanest winter was 2016/17; here it was a different one.

154
123
123
329
213
192
272
183
162
175
182
191
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

This ski area does not put a camera on its own slopes. What follows are nearby cameras, not the pistes themselves.

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

Some cameras here are provided by Windy.com. Footage plays in Windy’s own player; we do not store it. Windy.com

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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