Col d'Ornon is a ski area in France, at about 1,432 m. Within 3.3 km of its centre the map shows 22 marked runs and 4 lifts (about 6.1 km of piste).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 326 cm of snowfall a season, 378th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 64th in France. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2017/18 (606 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2016/17 (230 cm). March still brings 79 cm on average, close to January, its snowiest month.
The nearest city of any size is Grenoble, about 28 km away. Below is a link to its official live camera.
Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear here once snow starts to fall. Until then, the long-run record comes first.
Elevation of the ski area’s centre point, taken from a digital elevation model. It is not the base-to-summit range.
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 ↗
How much snow it gets
Measured by us across 3,069 ski areas by one identical method. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Compared with what is nearby
Within 50 km straight line. Measured the same way, so the ranks compare directly. Ski areas a few kilometres apart share a weather grid cell and can return the same figure.
| Ski area | Distance | Seasonal snowfall | World rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| L'Alpe du Grand Serre | 10 km | 334 cm | 330 |
| Domaine Skiable Chamrousse | 13 km | 339 cm | 309 |
| Alpe d'Huez Grand Domaine | 14 km | 423 cm | 144 |
| Les Deux Alpes | 15 km | 419 cm | 149 |
| Les Signaraux | 21 km | 135 cm | 1877 |
When it falls, and how winters differ
Month by month
Month by month, the most snow falls in January. March brings 88% 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.
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 326 cm, and 8 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2016/17 with 230 cm; the biggest was 2017/18 with 606 cm (2.6 times as much). For 26% of the 244 ski areas in France, the leanest winter was the same 2016/17: bad winters tend to hit a whole region at once.
Snowfall each winter (December–March total). The dashed line is the average; the numbers mark the leanest and the biggest winter.
Runs and lifts
Counted from the marked runs and lifts on the map, within 3.3 km of the centre of the ski area. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
By difficulty
Lift types
- Platter3
- Rope tow1
Source: OpenStreetMap (ODbL 1.0). How finely ski areas are drawn varies by region, so treat the counts as indicative. Difficulty uses the European grades, which do not map onto North American green / blue / black.
Live Cameras
Footage remains the copyright of each operator. JAPANSNOWLINE neither stores nor redistributes it.
Map
Where it sits relative to nearby resorts. For a piste map, see the official site.
Official piste map ↗More places to look
Guides covering France
- A Black Run in Colorado and a Black Run in Austria Are Not the Same Thing. The Maps Prove It. 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.
- How Big Are Japan's Ski Areas? Smaller Than the Alps, Snowier per Kilometre Measured across nearly 1,800 ski areas: the median Japanese one has 12 km of piste against France's 25. What Japan has instead is 25 cm of seasonal snow for every kilometre of run — more than two and a half times France and three times the United States.
Updated: 8 Oct 2026, 00:52