Coteaux du Lizon is a little town located in the Parc naturel régional du Haut-Jura in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Eastern France. The city is cut in two parts by the narrow but deep valley of the Lizon, a small river about 7 km long that cuts a little canyon in the vicinity of Coteaux du Lizon. The commune also has two vast coombs, one of which is towards the hamlet of "Grande-Maison" on the heights of the commune at the foot of the Roche d'Antre, which has climatic characteristics close to those of the coombs of la Brévine or Mouthe. Coteaux du Lizon is surrounded by the Roche d'Antre massif to the west and by the little mountains on which Avignon-lès-Saint-Claude is situated to the east. Although it is in the Haut-Jura, none of the peaks in the territory of the municipality exceeds 1000 m, but nevertheless, at 5 km to the south, there is the Crêt de Surmontant, which peaks at 1065 m. Note that the maximum altitude of its canton is near Lamoura at the Crêt Pela, culminating at 1495m. The Lizon is the main watercourse crossing the commune. There is also the Cuttura dam, a small water reserve located between Cuttura and Saint-Lupicin. There are many small mountain streams in the municipality.
Climate
Coteaux du Lizon features a degraded oceanic climate, bordering on a warm-summer humid continental climate. Winters are generally very cold for a marine west coast climate, while summers are warm with sunny days. High precipitations are present all the year, which are a particularity of Coteaux du Lizon's climate. Only two seasons are long : winter and summer. Summers are hot, with many thunderstorms, sometimes with hail and winters are relatively cool but very snowy from the altitude point of view. Its climate, which is relatively close to the humid continental climate, has abundant and balanced rainfall, but since the coldest month has an average temperature slightly above 1 °C, Coteaux-du-Lizon has been given the Cfb code by the Köppen classification despite predominantly continental conditions. The rain, which is abundant and evenly distributed throughout the year, can be absent for a long time, the most recent example is a rain-free period that lasted from March 11 to April 20. This is certainly the longest period without rain ever seen in Coteaux-du-Lizon. Clairvaux-les-Lacs is the village which has the nearest climate with Coteaux du Lizon. The heat record is 40.4 °C, recorded on June 28, 2019. The cold record is estimated at -30.1 °C on February 10, 1956, so the difference between these two absolute records is 71 °C.
