Sea

The Big Waves of Nazaré: 1 Live Camera — Portugal

One of the biggest wave coasts in the world. An undersea canyon offshore focuses the swell, and in the big-wave season the faces can reach 30 metres.

What you can see

Nazaré, in the Leiria district of Portugal, is one of the places where the biggest waves in the world stand up.

The reason is on the sea floor. A deep canyon offshore focuses the swell, so energy that would scatter along an ordinary coast converges on one spot. In the big-wave season the faces can reach 30 metres.

The size reads best when there is a person or a surfer in the frame. Without one, a wave that big can look like nothing more than white water.

Cameras you can watch now: 1

All 1 are live video. Tap one to open it in the camera list.

• Live video, Oct-Mar

  The big waves at Nazare

  Leiria, Nazare · Sea · Nature

  One of the coasts where the largest waves in the world stand up. An offshore submarine canyon focuses the swell, and in the big-wave season from October to March the faces can reach thirty metres.

  explore.org Live video, Oct-Mar Open the official page →

When to watch

The provider gives a season: the big waves run from October to March.

Portugal is 8 hours behind Japan (during daylight saving). Local 06:00 is 14:00 in Japan, local noon is 20:00, and local 18:00 is 02:00. So the local daylight hours run from the Japanese afternoon into the evening.

Outside daylight saving the gap is 9 hours, an hour later. Since the October-to-March season covers exactly that part of the year, 15:00 to 21:00 Japanese time is the window to open it in.

If it isn't showing

Sea cameras are collected under Sea and landforms under Nature.

For big water in Japan, The Kuroshio Coast; for the opposite, The Seto Inland Sea. To go under the surface, Coral and Kelp.

How to pick a time to open it is in Which cameras are in daylight now.

Agencies publishing the cameras on this page

• explore.org (Deep links and embeds OK, no image reuse) — Official site

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.