Japan volcano cams

Who runs these cams

The Japan Meteorological Agency monitors all of Japan’s active volcanoes and sets their alert levels; its surveillance cameras add a new still image every few minutes. The livestreams come from local broadcasters, companies and town halls, from Kagoshima and Kumamoto in the south to Gunma, Nagano and Hokkaido.

From Kyushu to Hokkaido

The volcanoes on this page run almost the length of the country. In the south, Sakurajima, Aso and Shinmoedake are among the most active in Japan, and Aso holds one of the largest calderas on earth. Central Honshū has Fuji, Asama and Kusatsu-Shirane, all within reach of Tokyo. Further north the mountains grow quieter but not less interesting: Adatara has a bare crater basin where a sulphur mine once worked, Iwate stands alone above the city of Morioka, and the Hakkōda range holds warm ponds between its peaks. Across the strait in Hokkaido, Komagatake lost its summit in a single eruption in 1640, and Esan has been venting sulphur without erupting since 1874.

Craters you can look into

Several of the cameras here are not aimed at a summit from far away: they sit on the rim and look down. Zaō's Okama is a crater lake whose green changes with the light; Meakan and Asahidake show their fumarole fields close up; Kuttara's Jigokudani is a whole valley of steaming ground above Noboribetsu. And two are not mountains at all but islands with a village inside the caldera — Aogashima, 360 kilometres out in the Pacific — or a cone that has been steaming without pause for thirty years, Iōdake on Satsuma-Iōjima.

From Hokkaido to the Tokara Islands

The list now runs almost the length of the country and out into the Pacific. In Hokkaido there are the fumarole fields of Atosanupuri and Asahidake and the crater of Meakan; in northern Honshū, Chōkai rising straight from the sea, Kurikoma with the earliest autumn in the country, Bandai with the hollow left by its collapse, and Zaō with its crater lake. Nasu is the closest of them to Tokyo. Out at sea there are Hachijōjima and Aogashima in the Izu chain, and Nakanoshima and Kuchinoerabujima in the south, where a volcano and a village share an island the ferry reaches twice a week.

Volcanoes and hot springs

Almost every volcano here has a hot spring town at its foot, from Kusatsu below Kusatsu-Shirane to Unzen on the Shimabara Peninsula. Many summit areas close when the alert level rises, so the cams are often the best way to see the craters.

When to watch

Japan is nine hours ahead of UTC all year. Winter usually brings the clearest skies, with snow-covered cones at their best in the early morning, while the rainy season in June and July often hides the mountains. Explosions can happen at any hour and often glow at night. In the north, snow covers the upper slopes from November until well into May.