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Showing this resort's typical peak window · closest airport CMF — adjust above
Resort dossier

Val Cenis

FR·Haute-Maurienne
family-friendlytraditionalgreat-valueLearner-friendly
Weeks 6–9

Typically -1.4°C · 22cm fresh / week · powder day 45% · mixed 51%

Top elev.
2800m
Base elev.
1400m
Pistes
125km
Lifts
23
Piste mix89km mapped
Green25%
Blue42%
Red29%
Black4%
COMPOSITE SCORE
53
Snow61
Typically 137cm
Typical depth137cm
106cm163cm
Travel30
From your origin
Size76
Piste km, discounted for linked-area connectivity
Fit50
Vibe, terrain, activities
What to expect

What to expect in weeks 6–9

Based on 29 winters of weather data, modelled at ~2728m (not the village). Any single year can be very different.

Typically mixed, around -1.4°C, with 22cm of fresh snow over the week. Powder days hit 45% of the time. Other weeks run stormy.

Icy mornings
2.2 days/week
spring-like in 25% of years
Snow texture
Settled
packed, predictable piste
Typical wind
2.5 m/s
peaks to 20 m/s
Typical Freezing level
1878 m
0°C isotherm
Powder days
45%
of years see 10cm+
Rain at base
3.7 days
per week
Storm
33%
of years
Bluebird
6%
of years
Thaw
11%
of years
Mixed
51%
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+
100%
Depth
137cm
Temperature
-1.4°C
Fresh snow
22cm
Snow line
1879m
Wind
2.5 m/s
Trend · 76 winters

The snow has held. The air has not.

Val Cenis's typical base has sat near 88cm since 1950, and a good winter still beats a bad one by 104cm, far more than any decade here differs from another. The winter freezing level has climbed 36m a decade.

88cm
96cm
100cm
82cm
83cm
83cm
94cm
77cm
1950–1959
1960–1969
1970–1979
1980–1989
1990–1999
2000–2009
2010–2019
2020–2025
Winter to winter
43–147cm

Across single winters (1988–89 to 1976–77).

Typical base
−10cm

1950–1959 to 2020–2025. The Other French Alps region moved −23cm.

Freezing level
+36m

Per decade. 1901m in 1950–1959, 2156m 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)126 min
Grenoble (GNB)173 min
Geneva (GVA)195 min
Lyon (LYS)174 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.

  • Val Cenis (La Berche)meteofrance