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Tochigi Live Cameras in Japan — 4 official webcams

Two monitored volcanoes, Mount Nasu and Mount Nikko-Shirane, and Lake Yunoko in the Oku-Nikko highlands, plus a live stream of the Kinu and Kokai rivers. The three mountain cameras sit high enough that the seasons arrive about a month ahead of the lowlands.

What you can see

Two volcano cameras from the Japan Meteorological Agency, one lake camera from the Ministry of the Environment, and one river live stream from the transport ministry. The first three sit high, and the season runs about a month ahead of Utsunomiya or the town of Nikko below.

The Mount Nikko-Shirane camera is not on the mountain at all — it stands on the shore of Lake Chuzenji and looks west across the water at the ridge beyond, so you get the lake surface as well. On Mount Nasu, steam rises continuously near the summit of Chausu, and on a windy day you can read the wind from the way it drifts. Lake Yunoko is a small lake ringed by old-growth forest, and it freezes in winter.

Those three cameras look at ground shaped by lava damming a valley. Lake Chuzenji formed when lava out of Mount Nantai blocked the valley, and where the impounded water spills over the lip is Kegon Falls. The Nikko-Shiranesan camera stands on the shore of that lake. Lake Yunoko further upstream came about the same way, and its own overflow is Yudaki Falls. The lakes and falls of Oku-Nikko are not scattered features but one chain of water.

The fourth, the Kinu and Kokai rivers, is a different kind of camera. One stream cycles through several points on two rivers that carry the rain and snowmelt off the Nikko mountains southward. The high ground the other three cameras watch is where this water begins.

4 cameras in Tochigi

1 video, 3 still. Tap one to open it in the camera list.

When to watch

Lake Yunoko lies at around 1,470 m, so its autumn colour comes early — late September into early October — and the lake freezes in winter. By the time Nikko down in the valley is at its best, the leaves up here may already have fallen.

Mount Nikko-Shirane is the highest peak in the Kanto region. It sits on the Gunma border, so pair it with the Gunma cameras to follow the same massif from another side.

The river stream is busiest from June to October, when the rainy front and the typhoons overlap. The rest of the year these are shallow rivers, with sandbars and riffles well exposed.

Closer looks at cameras here

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.

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