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Volcano: 96 Live Cameras

Sakurajima, Mount Aso, Mount Asama, Mount Ontake, Mount Fuji: the cameras Japan's weather agency points at active summits, watching for eruptions all day.

Sample frame from Mount Nekodake from Minami-Aso (August 2026)
Mount Nekodake from Minami-Aso · Sample August 2026

What you can see

Japan has this many mountains under live camera not for tourism. The Meteorological Agency designates the active ones as constantly monitored volcanoes and installs cameras alongside seismometers and tiltmeters. Plume height and direction, crater colour, a glow at night — several things still have to be judged by eye.

The same mountain often carries cameras from several agencies at once. The Meteorological Agency watches the crater; the transport ministry's erosion-control cameras watch the valleys where debris flows travel; the Environment Ministry's scenery cameras take the whole mountain from a distance. Different purposes mean different angles and different refresh rates. Open them on the same day and one is often inside cloud while another is clear.

Overseas volcanoes are here too. GNS Science covers New Zealand's, the US Geological Survey covers Hawaii's, on the same reasoning. While Japan's volcanoes sit in darkness, it is daylight on the other side of the planet.

Cameras you can watch now: 96

5 video, 91 still. Tap one to open it in the camera list.

Hokkaido9

Aomori3

Iwate2

Miyagi1

Akita1

Yamagata1

Fukushima3

Tochigi2

Gunma4

Tokyo6

Kanagawa1

Niigata1

Toyama1

Ishikawa1

Nagano3

Shizuoka3

Nagasaki1

Kumamoto3

Oita2

Miyazaki2

Kagoshima6

United States26

New Zealand11

Iceland1

Taiwan2

When to watch

Winter mornings show the most. From November through February the air is dry and the view runs a long way, and with snow on the slopes any fresh ashfall stands out as a dark patch. Summer afternoons are the opposite: rising air climbs the slopes and the mountain manufactures its own cloud, so it can be a clear day everywhere except on the peak.

To check a plume, go early in the morning. Cool, still air lets the plume rise high with a hard outline. By midday the temperature gradient has flattened and the plume thins out until you cannot pick it from the sky.

On the most active mountains the crater can glow red at night, as lava or hot gas lights the base of the cloud. It is invisible in daylight. Only a few mountains do it, but Sakurajima and Suwanosejima have both been caught at it.

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Agencies publishing the cameras on this page

The footage belongs to each agency. This site is an unofficial guide, and each sample frame was copied once per camera under that agency's terms of use.

To find other cameras, go to the camera list. You can narrow the cameras by format, region, subject and provider.