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 →
Updated: 10 Nov 2026, 12:15
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 ↗
| Date | Weather | Snow (cm) | Low / high (°C) | Wind (km/h) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tue 10 Nov | Showers | 0 | 0 to 4 | 15 |
| Wed 11 Nov | Showers | 0 | 1 to 3 | 15 |
| Thu 12 Nov | Rain | 0 | 1 to 3 | 16 |
| Fri 13 Nov | Cloudy | 0 | 0 to 4 | 8 |
| Sat 14 Nov | Fog | 0 | −1 to 2 | 11 |
| Sun 15 Nov | Snow showers | 2 | −2 to 1 | 14 |
| Mon 16 Nov | Snow showers | 5 | −4 to 2 | 22 |
The five add up to the 100-point Powder Score: more fresh snow, more on the way and colder air all push it up. How we measure
Orcières Merlette, in France, runs from 1,826 m at the base to 2,731 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 6.7 km across, with 69 marked runs and 26 lifts (about 50 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 327 cm of snowfall a season, 370th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 61st in France. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2017/18 (624 cm), brought more than 3 times as much as the leanest, 2014/15 (187 cm). December brings as much snow as January here (96 and 83 cm on average).
The nearest city of any size is Grenoble, about 71 km away in a straight line.
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.
Only 35% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. The most common direction is south (51%).
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.
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
Modelled from weather data the same way at all 3,069 ski areas we cover. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Serre Eyraud | 6.0 km | 244 cm | 772 |
| Domaine Skiable Saint-Léger-Les-Mélèzes | 12.0 km | 161 cm | 1527 |
| Chaillol | 14.0 km | 256 cm | 686 |
| Ancelle | 15.0 km | 145 cm | 1729 |
| Station de ski de Reallon | 15.0 km | 213 cm | 1022 |
The most snow falls in December. March brings 95% 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.
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 327 cm, and 8 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2014/15 with 187 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 624 cm (3.3 times as much). For 26% of the 244 ski areas in France the leanest winter was 2016/17; here it was a different one.
Snowfall each winter (December–March total). The dashed line is the average; the numbers mark the leanest and the biggest winter.
Other booking sites: Booking.com ↗ · Agoda ↗
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