No snow yet. Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear once snow is on the ground or forecast.
Typical snowfall
273cm
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
1,190–1,488 m
Across
1.7 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 ↗
Rathvel, in Switzerland, runs from 1,190 m at the base to 1,488 m at the top. Its mapped area is about 1.7 km across, with 12 marked runs and 3 lifts (about 5.6 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 273 cm of snowfall a season, 602nd (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 123rd in Switzerland. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2017/18 (437 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2016/17 (197 cm). January is usually the snowiest month, with about 81 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
273cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
197cm
The middle winter of the 12: 246 cm. The best: 437 cm.
World rank
602
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
123
of 283 in Switzerland
Elevation rank
168
Highest to lowest, of 283 in Switzerland. The centre point sits at 1,341 m, 96 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 72% of January’s snowfall.
71cmDec
81cmJan
62cmFeb
58cmMar
Average snowfall by month, last 12 winters
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 273 cm, and 7 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2016/17 with 197 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 437 cm (2.2 times as much).
Across 3,069 ski areas we measure, height and snowfall move together — +0.58 in France, +0.85 in Germany. In Japan the figure is +0.02. The reason is not that elevation stopped working.