No snow yet. Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear once snow is on the ground or forecast.
Typical snowfall
365cm
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
1,329–1,722 m
Across
2.6 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 ↗
Passy - Plaine Joux, in France, runs from 1,329 m at the base to 1,722 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 2.6 km across, with 17 marked runs and 7 lifts (about 7.8 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 365 cm of snowfall a season, 239th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 33rd in France. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2017/18 (607 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2016/17 (243 cm). January is usually the snowiest month, with about 110 cm.
The nearest city of any size is Geneva, about 55 km away in a straight line.
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
365cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
243cm
The middle winter of the 12: 349 cm. The best: 607 cm.
World rank
239
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
33
of 244 in France
Elevation rank
137
Highest to lowest, of 244 in France. The centre point sits at 1,489 m, 48 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 78% of January’s snowfall. That is in line with the median for ski areas in France (77%). In amount, March brings 86 cm, more than the median of 55 cm.
89cmDec
110cmJan
81cmFeb
86cmMar
Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 365 cm, and 6 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2016/17 with 243 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 607 cm (2.5 times as much).
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.