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First Snowcap: 16 Live Cameras in Japan

For 44 mountains, the Japan Meteorological Agency records hatsukansetsu — the first day each season that the summit is seen turning white from the observatory at its foot. These 16 cameras cover 13 of those mountains, in the order the day usually comes: Mount Asahi on 25 September, Sakurajima on 18 December.

What you can see

Kansetsu means snow or hail lying near the summit so that it looks white. The amount does not matter. The first day it looks that way from the observatory, within the cold-season year that runs from 1 August to 31 July, is that mountain's first snowcap. Nobody climbs up to measure it — it is decided by eye, from the foot of the mountain.

Mount Fuji is the exception. Its first snowcap cannot be counted until after the day the Fuji summit weather station records its highest daily mean temperature of the year. Snow that appears while summer is still peaking does not count, and an early announcement is sometimes withdrawn for exactly that reason.

And the observation itself changes this winter. In a release dated 31 July 2026, the agency said that from the coming cold season it will stop relying on staff looking at the peak and instead report summit snow from analysed snow depth, built out of AMeDAS stations, weather radar and the Himawari satellite. Cloud and darkness will no longer hide the summit — but the older idea of a day someone could see from below reaches its end for these 44 mountains.

Four of the cameras here sit on the mountain rather than below it — Mount Asahi, Midagahara, Jigokunuma on Hakkoda, Okama on Mount Zao. They are already at the height where the snow falls, so they whiten before any observatory could announce it. The distant ones — Mount Gassan, Mount Haku, Mount Asama, Mount Fuji — have the same problem the observers do: on a cloudy morning they show nothing at all. That is why so many of the sample images on this page are hazy.

Cameras you can watch now: 16

All 16 are still images. Tap one to open it in the camera list.

When to watch

The usual dates, averaged over 1991–2020 and taken in order: 25 September Mount Asahi, 2 October Mount Fuji, 12 October Tateyama, 13 October Mount Iwate, 17 October Mount Meakan, 19 October Hakkoda, 20 October Mount Gassan, 21 October Mount Iwaki and Mount Haku, 26 October Mount Azuma, 28 October Mount Zao, 31 October Mount Asama, 18 December Sakurajima. That is 84 days from the first to the last.

Year to year the date moves more than autumn colour does — a month either way is normal — because it depends less on whether snow fell than on whether the summit happened to be visible that day.

Morning is the time to look. Through October and November cloud builds over these mountains before noon, so the distant cameras only have a clear peak early. On the morning after a fall, the white and the bare rock are as separate as they ever get.

Twelve of the cameras belong to the Meteorological Agency and refresh every two minutes; four belong to the Ministry of the Environment and refresh hourly. All 16 are still images, and all of them go dark at night — you need light to see something white.

If it isn't showing

The recorded day is not the day the snow fell. It is the day the snow was seen. Snow can sit on the summit for a week while cloud keeps the announcement waiting for a clear sky, and the cameras on this page wait with it.

Snow has no colour, so there is none of the slow turning that autumn leaves give you. A slope that was brown yesterday is simply white the next time the weather clears. Rather than checking daily, open these on the morning after rain or snow.

The same mountains in colour are on Autumn Leaves; the mountains themselves on Tohoku volcanoes and Midagahara; and the last one of the year on Sakurajima.

Where to find First Snowcap

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 173 cameras by format, region, subject and provider.
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