Orcières Merlette is a ski area in France, on slopes between roughly 2,459 and 2,459 m. 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.
Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear here once snow starts to fall. Until then, the long-run record comes first.
Elevation range is estimated by sampling points across the ski area.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Serre Eyraud | 6.0 km | 244 cm | 772 |
| Domaine Skiable Saint-Léger-Les-Mélèzes | 12 km | 161 cm | 1527 |
| Chaillol | 14 km | 256 cm | 686 |
| Ancelle | 15 km | 145 cm | 1729 |
| Station de ski de Reallon | 15 km | 213 cm | 1022 |
When it falls, and how winters differ
Month by month
Month by month, 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.
Winter by winter
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).
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 runs and lifts drawn on OpenStreetMap, within the boundary of the ski area. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Run map
The shape of the mountain
Which way the slopes face
Only 35% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. More of the terrain faces the sun.
By difficulty
Lift types
- Drag lift13
- Chairlift5
- Magic carpet4
- Mixed gondola/chair3
- Rope tow1
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.
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
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