Weather and Vegetation

Generally speaking, the Savoie climate is determined by depressions coming from the west and southwest and/or the high pressures of Central Europe; it is a semi-continental climate very much influenced by the altitude.

While the large cluses and combes are mild in the winter—although snow can be plentiful there—they can be very hot in the summer. Those cluses with lakes, like Annecy, benefit from the warmer mass of their lake and are more temperate than the intra-Alpine valleys.

Still, it rains quite a bit in the Savoie, especially in the Avant Pays and the Northern Savoie; when it rains in the lower altitudes, it snows in the upper ones, unless one is above 3000 feet, tucked behind a mass of mountains such as Mont Blanc or the Vanoise. It is not unusual to arrive in Chamonix or Val d’Isère and find a deep blue sky and only light clouds, the stations sitting high above the atmospheric depressions.