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Mount Fuji: 4 Live Cameras in Japan

Three agencies point four cameras at Mount Fuji from four directions — three from Shizuoka, one from Yamanashi. Same mountain, completely different snow and cloud.

What you can see

This site carries four cameras on Mount Fuji. The awkward part is that they are split between Shizuoka and Yamanashi, so neither prefecture page has the full set. Hence this page.

All four were installed for different reasons. The Meteorological Agency camera watches it as a volcano, keeping an eye on the summit vents. Lake Tanuki is an Environment Ministry scenery camera, taking the mountain head-on from the west-southwest across water. The Fuji Northern Foot flux observation site sits at a forestry research station on the Yamanashi side and looks up from the northern skirt. The erosion-control camera belongs to the transport ministry and faces Osawa-kuzure, where the mountainside is actively collapsing.

Open all four on the same day and you will often find cloud on one side only. Fuji stands alone and manufactures its own cloud, so 'not visible' usually is not the weather — it is just that face brewing its own.

Cameras you can watch now: 4

All 4 are still images. Tap one to open it in the camera list.

When to watch

A winter morning is the safest bet. From November through February the air is dry enough to give a hard outline, and the snow cap separates the mountain cleanly from the sky. Summer is the opposite: through July and August it is often hidden even in the morning, and the question becomes whether you can make out lights on the climbing routes.

For time of day, aim between sunrise and about 9 a.m. As the air warms, updraughts run up the slopes and build cloud, which is usually there by early afternoon. It sometimes clears again towards evening, and the mountain can turn red just before sunset.

The Lake Tanuki camera sits at the spot known for Diamond Fuji, when the sun rises directly off the summit around the 20th of April and August. The camera only refreshes hourly, though, so catching the moment is luck. The inverted reflection on a windless morning is far easier to plan for.

Where Mount Fuji is

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 all 172 cameras by format, region, subject and provider.
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