
In numbers.
90m
Height
0.47m³/s
Average flow
estimate
Apr–Jul
Best months
415kW
Water power
estimate
The water at Cascade du Rouget, month by month
It roars from April to May.
The fullest months: from April to May, with the snowmelt.
- 0.3 m³/sJan
- 0.3 m³/sFeb
- 0.6 m³/sMar
- 0.9 m³/sApr
- 0.8 m³/sMay
- 0.6 m³/sJun
- 0.5 m³/sJul
- 0.4 m³/sAug
- 0.3 m³/sSep
- 0.3 m³/sOct
- 0.4 m³/sNov
- 0.4 m³/sDec
From about 0.26 m³/s in the lowest month to 0.87 m³/s in the highest. Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: from April to July.
Estimate: the timing comes from rain, snowmelt and evaporation (NASA POWER, 1991–2020); the amounts from the river model of HydroATLAS (WaterGAP, 1971–2000). Dams upstream can change the real flow.
Cascade du Rouget is a waterfall in France. The water falls 90 m.
Getting there.
- Samoënsnearest town · 7.1 km in a straight line
- Parking 120 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
- Annecy Meythet airport (NCY)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 53 km in a straight lineCar hire at GVA airport (Geneva)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From April to Julybest months to go (estimate)
Plan your visit
Stay, explore and get there
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
How big is it?
How big it really is.
Height of the drop from Wikidata. Buildings and the person are drawn at the same scale.
415 kW
About 0.47 m³/s falling 90 m: the power of the water as it drops.
- enough to power about 104 homes, if it were all turned into electricity
Power of falling water = density × gravity × flow × height. Average flow and height as shown above; an estimate.
Seen from the sky.
8 × 8 km of cloud-free satellite image, with what OpenStreetMap knows around the falls.
N
2 km
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 8 × 8 km, north up. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.
The line follows the river as mapped in OpenStreetMap; heights from the 30 m Copernicus model, which smooths narrow drops — the published height of the falls is the one above.
Around the falls the river drops 428 m in 2.3 km. Here the river runs about 129 m below the lower rim of its valley.
What is around.
- 7viewpointsCascade de la Sauffaz and 6 more
- 31waymarked walking routesGR 96 and 30 more
- 18car parks
- —swimming spots
- 3picnic sites
- 5toilets
- 7information boards and visitor centres
- 1bus stops within 1 km
- 12other named waterfalls within 4 kmCascades d'Anterne, Cascade de Saubaudy, Cascade de la Sauffaz and 9 more
- —caves
- 5campsitesCamping-Car Park Sixt-Fer-à-Cheval, Point accueil jeune du Pont de Sales, Le Giffre and 2 more
- 36hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 kmRefuge du Grenairon, Refuge d'Anterne Alfred Wills, Les Balcons Jaunes and 33 more
- 5restaurants and cafés within 3 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, up to 2 km around the falls (unless noted). A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
Towns nearby
- Samoëns7.1 km in a straight line
- Arâches-la-Frasse11 km in a straight line
- Magland12 km in a straight line
- Passy13 km in a straight line
- Chamonix-Mont-Blanc14 km in a straight line
- Sallanches14 km in a straight line
- Les Houches15 km in a straight line
- Saint-Gervais-les-Bains16 km in a straight line
Weather
The weather, month by month.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afternoon °C | 2 | 3 | 6 | 12 | 16 | 21 | 23 | 22 | 19 | 15 | 8 | 4 |
| Night °C | -6 | -6 | -2 | 3 | 7 | 11 | 13 | 12 | 8 | 5 | 0 | -4 |
| Rain & snow (mm) | 107 | 77 | 94 | 74 | 117 | 105 | 103 | 105 | 76 | 86 | 94 | 110 |
| Wet days | 12 | 11 | 13 | 13 | 18 | 16 | 15 | 14 | 13 | 13 | 14 | 14 |
| Sun h/day | 3.3 | 4.5 | 5.5 | 6.3 | 6.6 | 8.5 | 8.8 | 7.9 | 6.9 | 5.0 | 3.1 | 2.6 |
| Snow on the ground (cm) | 49 | 62 | 46 | 15 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 15 | 29 |
Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (1,000 m) at −6.5 °C per 1,000 m. Not a forecast.
Photos
Through visitors' eyes.



Recent years
Wet years and dry years
Rain of each month as a share of the 1991–2020 average. A wet season above 100 % usually means a fuller waterfall.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 54% | 206% | 105% | 67% | 97% | 145% | 50% | 116% | 136% | 209% | 24% | 70% |
| 2021 | 146% | 67% | 73% | 63% | 124% | 103% | 147% | 64% | 93% | 62% | 59% | 162% |
| 2022 | 39% | 119% | 19% | 126% | 57% | 75% | 33% | 55% | 179% | 107% | 104% | 113% |
| 2023 | 72% | 8% | 186% | 138% | 76% | 101% | 68% | 101% | 87% | 167% | 272% | 194% |
| 2024 | 101% | 88% | 142% | 128% | 156% | 161% | 102% | 78% | 280% | 175% | 79% | 110% |
| 2025 | 124% | 39% | 41% | 141% | 88% | 92% | 102% | 91% | 175% | 157% | 106% | 28% |
130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual
Compare with the waterfalls nearby.
About these numbers
| Names, height, width, river | Wikidata (Q2940868) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| River flow and catchment | HydroATLAS / RiverATLAS v1.0 (Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 |
| Climate | NASA POWER, 1991–2020 |
| Relief, river profile, 3D model | Copernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Paths, viewpoints, parking | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers or canyons?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.



