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Autumn Leaves: 16 Live Cameras in Japan

Japan's autumn colour starts on the high mountains of the north and takes two and a half months to reach the lowlands of the south. These 16 cameras are ordered by when the colour usually arrives, from Asahidake in mid-September to Arashiyama in late November.

What you can see

Autumn colour in Japan moves north to south and high to low. Asahidake in Hokkaido turns in mid-September; Arashiyama in Kyoto turns in late November. That is two and a half months of difference inside one country. The cameras on this page are not in map order — they are in the order the colour normally reaches them, so working down the list shows you roughly how far south and how far downhill the season has come.

One thing to know first: none of these 16 cameras was installed to watch the leaves. Ten belong to the Japan Meteorological Agency and point at active volcanoes. Five belong to the Ministry of the Environment and show national park scenery. One belongs to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and watches a river. Some of them never frame a famous view head-on, so it is worth separating what each kind actually shows.

The cameras whose frame is mostly above the tree line — Asahidake, Midagahara, Zao's Okama crater lake, Kurikomayama — show ground cover rather than trees. Japanese calls this kusa-momiji, "grass autumn colour": too high for tall trees, so low shrubs such as rowan and the grasses themselves turn, and whole slopes shift from summer green to rust.

The cameras with water and mountain in one frame — Lake Towada, Ozenuma, Lake Yunoko, Lake Chuzenji, Renge-numa in Ura-Bandai — stack the view in three bands: water in front, a wooded slope behind it, a mountain above that. On a still morning the surface goes to glass and the colour appears twice.

The last camera, Togetsukyo Bridge in Arashiyama, is the only one showing a town rather than a mountain, and the only video stream of the 16. The picture on its card is the cover image of the stream page, not the camera's own view.

Cameras you can watch now: 16

1 video, 15 still. Tap one to open it in the camera list.

When to watch

In an average year the peak arrives in roughly this order. Mid-September: Asahidake. Late September: Midagahara, Zao, Oze, Norikuradake. Early October: Kurikomayama, Azumayama, Nasudake. Mid-October: Lake Towada, Norikura Kogen, Bandaisan, Oku-Nikko. Late October: Ura-Bandai. Late November: Arashiyama. It shifts by one to two weeks from year to year, and runs late after a summer whose heat holds on.

Look in the morning. High mountains build cloud from late morning onward, so through September and October the clear hours are usually the early ones. Low sun also puts more colour into the picture.

The best weather is the day after rain. The air has been washed of dust and sightlines open up, which matters most for the cameras looking a long way out.

Refresh rates differ by operator. The ten Meteorological Agency cameras update every two minutes; the five Ministry of the Environment cameras update once an hour, so depending on when you arrive you may be looking at a picture taken nearly an hour ago. Only Arashiyama is live video.

If it isn't showing

Autumn is also when mountain weather turns unsettled. September brings typhoons and the autumn rain front; October alternates highs and lows, so clear spells rarely last. The higher the camera, the longer it sits inside cloud — Asahidake and Midagahara can stay white all day.

The colour itself photographs paler than it looks in person. These are monitoring cameras, not scenic ones, and reds sink badly under overcast. The same slope on a clear day can look like a different mountain.

After dark the 15 still cameras show almost nothing. If you want something moving at night, the live streams on the Yodo River system are the better choice. The mountains themselves are also covered on Tohoku volcanoes and Oku-Nikko.

Where to find Autumn Leaves

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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