Azores volcano cams
Nine islands built entirely by volcanoes, sitting where three tectonic plates meet in the middle of the Atlantic. The cam here looks at the highest mountain in Portugal, a cone that rises straight out of the sea.
Photos: Mount Pico: José Luís Ávila Silveira / Pedro Noronha e Costa, public domain.
Who runs this cam
The live video above the harbour of Lajes do Pico is shared through Windy by a whale-watching company on the waterfront. The other Azorean cameras belong to SpotAzores, a Portuguese operator with cameras on all nine islands, which does not allow its images to be shown on other sites.
Volcanoes of the Azores
Mount Pico is the one everybody recognises: a 2,351-metre cone rising alone out of the sea, last erupted in 1720 and visible from five of the nine islands on a clear day. On São Miguel, two more calderas are still warm: Sete Cidades holds two lakes of different colours inside a bowl five kilometres wide, and Furnas, at the other end of the island, has fumaroles in the middle of the village and ground hot enough to be used as an oven — stews are still buried there to cook. The archipelago as a whole is a UNESCO Global Geopark, and its volcanoes are monitored from the University of the Azores.
When to watch
The Azores are on UTC−1 in winter and UTC+0 from late March to late October, so local time is close to London's and the islands are in daylight while most of Europe is awake. Weather changes by the hour: the best chance of a clear summit is early in the morning, before the cloud that forms over the high ground builds up. Winter gives the sharpest air, and snow on Pico.