What today's reading tells us
At this time of year the average horizontal visibility from the summit of the tower sits around 31 kilometres on a quiet autumn day, which is enough to pick out the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur on Montmartre and the roofs of La Défense but not the forest of Fontainebleau to the south-east. On a high-pressure day the view can stretch to 55 kilometres; on a wet, warm front the view can drop below 10 kilometres and the top platform is sometimes closed to visitors for safety.
Our daily note combines three sources — the official MF bulletin for Paris, the Montsouris observatory station data, and the Eiffel Tower's own public wind measurements when the SETE site publishes them. We do not run a weather model of our own.
How to read the top panel
- Visibility (km) — the expected horizontal visibility at summit level around solar noon. Anything above 30 km we mark as good; between 20 and 30 km we mark as fair; below 20 km we mark as poor. These bands reflect what you can see from the summit, not what you can see from the ground on the Champ-de-Mars.
- Wind at summit — the forecast wind speed at 324 metres. Winds up to 60 km/h are routine; the summit platform usually closes to visitors above 80 km/h gusts and the lift to the top sometimes stops around 70 km/h sustained.
- Sunrise & sunset — civil daylight times rounded to the minute. The time between civil twilight and sunrise is a good window for a cold-weather climb, with pale pink light on the Hausmannian facades.
- Golden hour — the short window ending about two minutes before sunset, when direct side-light hits the iron. If you are hoping for the classic warm-coloured tower photograph, this is the time.
What we do not forecast
We do not forecast the night-time illumination of the tower, the sparkle show that happens on the hour after sunset, or ticket availability. All three depend on operational decisions by SETE and are published on their official site.
Confidence
Our visibility figures are useful to a factor of about one half. A reading of 30 km, good may well be a day with 18 km visibility if a Saharan dust episode is in progress and we missed it. We publish updates every six hours precisely for this reason — one incorrect morning reading can usually be corrected by 13:00. For irreversible decisions (changing a flight date, cancelling a non-refundable ticket), consult the Météo-France bulletin.
Related pages
- The full methodology — what we read, how we weight sources, where our thresholds come from
- Four seasons on the summit — what to expect month by month
- Visibility notes — the physics of what reduces the view