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Sea

Tides: 9 Live Cameras — when the sea climbs the river

Nine cameras where the tide shows: five on rivers the sea climbs, one on a strait where it becomes a current, three on coasts where sand appears at low tide.

What you can see

The tide is not only the sea's. The lower reach of a river moves as part of the sea.

Of the five rivers the sea climbs, the Rokkaku falls so gently that the tide of the Ariake Sea runs far inland; its source notes that the muddy surface sometimes moves upstream. Watching it, you lose track of which way the river runs. The Midori reaches the same Ariake Sea, and its wide mouth flats make the river look visibly thinner at low water. The Matsuura is on the Genkai side, where a sandbar has built up near the mouth, so the tide changes the look of it. Nakagawa Bridge is close to the mouth at Anan, where the river is wide enough for the tide to reach. Shinsuna emergency wharf sits at the -0.5 km marker, the point where the Arakawa comes nearest the sea, and its level rises and falls within a single day.

The one strait is the Kurushima Strait, one of the three fastest tidal races in Japan. Every time the tide turns, the pattern on the surface changes and large ships pass through in single file. On the other eight the water level changes; here the water itself runs.

Of the three coasts, the Higashi-Harima coast is a sand beach on the Seto Inland Sea, where wave height and tide level are the thing to watch. In Korea, Hagampo is on a sea with a large tidal range, and the beach widens out to seaward when the tide drops. At Dadohaehaesang the tide changes how much sand is showing, and how clearly the far islands stand tells you how clear the air is.

These nine are gathered because one single motion takes a different form in each place: level on a river, current in a strait, width of sand on a coast.

Cameras you can watch now: 9

7 video, 2 still. Tap one to open it in the camera list.

When to watch

The clearest way is to look twice in one day. The tide rises and falls within the day, so opening the same picture a few hours apart shows a changed level or a changed width of sand. One look tells you nothing.

The five rivers are no good after rain. Water coming down from upstream beats the tide and hides it. Decisions about evacuating belong to your local authority; these cameras are for looking.

Kurushima is a still picture once an hour, so the running moment itself is never caught. You read it from the pattern on the surface and the line of ships.

The two Korean cameras are on the same clock as Japan, with no daylight saving, so unlike the Taiwanese ones there is no offset to add.

High and low water times are not published by the sources, so this page does not set them either. For tide times, see the tide tables of the Japan Meteorological Agency.

If it isn't showing

The sources are the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (Kyushu, Shikoku and Kinki regional bureaus, and the Arakawa Downstream River Office), the Ministry of the Environment, and the Korea National Park Service. Shinsuna refreshes every minute and Kurushima every hour. What is happening when a live camera shows nothing explains how to tell why.

Each river and sea is covered in full on its own page: The Rivers of Fukuoka and Saga (Rokkaku and Matsuura), The Rivers of Kumamoto and Nagasaki (Midori), The Naka River, The Arakawa (Shinsuna), The Seto Inland Sea (Kurushima), Rivers and Coast in Hyogo (Higashi-Harima) and US and Korean National Parks (the two Korean cameras).

For the same rivers seen from the deck of a bridge, see Bridges. The sea itself is under Sea and rivers under River.

Where to find Tides

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 439 cameras by format, region, subject and provider.