PeakWindow/Orcières-Merlette
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Resort dossier

Orcières-Merlette

FR·Hautes-Alpes
family-friendlygreat-valuesunnyLearner-friendly
Weeks 50–1

Typically -6.9°C · 19cm fresh / week · powder day 46% · mixed 40%

Top elev.
2725m
Base elev.
1500m
Pistes
100km
Lifts
22
Piste mix49km mapped
Green6%
Blue45%
Red39%
Black9%
Orcières-Merlette
Wikimedia
COMPOSITE SCORE
45
Snow51
Typically 76cm
Typical depth76cm
45cm101cm
Travel13
From your origin
Size72
Piste km, discounted for linked-area connectivity
Fit50
Vibe, terrain, activities
What to expect

What to expect in weeks 1–53

Based on 29 winters of weather data, modelled at ~2035m (not the village). Any single year can be very different.

Typically mixed, around -6.9°C, with 19cm of fresh snow over the week. Powder days hit 46% of the time. Other weeks run stormy or cold and clear.

Icy mornings
1.5 days/week
spring-like in 19% of years
Snow texture
Powdery
soft, easy turns
Typical wind
3.6 m/s
peaks to 28 m/s
Typical Freezing level
1051 m
0°C isotherm
Powder days
46%
of years see 10cm+
Rain at base
0.3 days
per week
Storm
36%
of years
Bluebird
24%
of years
Thaw
0%
of years
Mixed
40%
of years
Climatology

What a season here looks like

Each track shows the typical range across 29 winters. The marker shows where your selected weeks sit.

Reliability60cm+
66%
Depth
78cm
Temperature
-6.9°C
Fresh snow
19cm
Snow line
1052m
Wind
3.6 m/s
Trend · 76 winters

The snow has held. The air has not.

Orcières-Merlette's typical base has sat near 95cm since 1950, and a good winter still beats a bad one by 131cm, far more than any decade here differs from another. The winter freezing level has climbed 44m a decade.

94cm
105cm
109cm
92cm
90cm
89cm
91cm
82cm
1950–1959
1960–1969
1970–1979
1980–1989
1990–1999
2000–2009
2010–2019
2020–2025
Winter to winter
37–168cm

Across single winters (1953–54 to 1976–77).

Typical base
−13cm

1950–1959 to 2020–2025. The Hautes-Alpes region moved −13cm.

Freezing level
+44m

Per decade. 1229m in 1950–1959, 1557m now.

Calibrated reanalysis, 1950–2025. Bars are each winter's mean base, rules each decade's mean. 2020–2025 holds 6 winters, not ten. Every figure here averages a full season, so none of them will match the readings for your chosen weeks above.

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Transfers

Transfers

AirportDriveTrain
Chambéry (CMF)173 min
Grenoble (GNB)157 min
Geneva (GVA)241 min
Lyon (LYS)183 min
Method & sources

We weigh snow reliability against this resort's own history, add live conditions where we have them, then adjust for how hard the trip is for your group.

  1. 01ERA5-Land hourly grid → daily SWE & snow depth at the resort cell.
  2. 02Bias-correct against ground stations (SLF / Météo-France nivôse).
  3. 03Build per-week climatological percentile · 30 winters.
  4. 04Anomaly = current week vs. cell's own 30-year baseline.
  5. 05Snow-sure read at the highest-snow cell within ~15km. When most resorts are bare, ranking shifts toward this, surfacing glaciers in shoulder seasons.
  6. 06Weight + rank against your origin & vibe profile.
Sources

Snow data sources

Ground stations the score is based on.

  • ORCIERES_NIVOmeteofrance