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Tongariro National Park: 7 Live Cameras

A World Heritage volcanic area in the middle of New Zealand's North Island. Seven cameras on three mountains — and the seasons run opposite to Japan's.

What you can see

Three volcanoes sit close together in the centre of the North Island. Tongariro National Park was established in 1887, which makes it one of the oldest national parks anywhere. It is inscribed as World Heritage twice over: for the landforms themselves, and for what the mountains mean to Māori.

The seven cameras divide the three mountains between them. Tongariro is a run of linked craters, and the Te Maari crater, which erupted in 2012, has a camera of its own. Ngauruhoe is a nearly perfect cone, and well known as a filming location. Ruapehu is the highest point on the North Island and holds a lake in its summit crater. The level and temperature of that lake are what is being watched; there are cameras on the north, east and south sides because the wind decides which way a plume drifts.

The images come from GeoNet (GNS Science), New Zealand's equivalent of Japan's Meteorological Agency for earthquakes and volcanoes, and they are published openly.

Ruapehu's crater lake has a history of overflowing into lahars — volcanic mudflows. On Christmas Eve 1953 one of them destroyed a rail bridge and caused a major disaster. The cameras are not watching that lake for the scenery.

Cameras you can watch now: 7

All 7 are still images. Tap one to open it in the camera list.

When to watch

The time zone first. New Zealand runs three to four hours ahead of Japan (four during daylight saving). 9 a.m. in Japan is early afternoon there, so a Japanese morning is the New Zealand day, and by the Japanese evening it is getting dark on the mountains.

The seasons are inverted too. When Japan is in summer, this is winter. For snow-covered mountains, look between July and September; for bare, raw volcanic ground, look during the Japanese winter. Ruapehu has ski fields, so through their winter you will see tracks worked into the slopes.

This place takes the westerly weather head-on and it changes fast. At the same moment, the three Ruapehu cameras can look like three different days. If one is white out, try another angle before giving up.

If it isn't showing

All seven are stills, one every ten minutes, and none of them shows anything at night. These cameras are there to watch the volcanoes, not to compose a view: the angles are chosen so that a change in the steam is easy to spot. The Te Maari camera is zoomed right in and does not take in the mountain at all.

Three of the seven look at Mount Ruapehu from the north, the east and the south. The wind decides which way the steam drifts, so when one camera shows nothing the downwind one may still have it. The remaining four are on Tongariro and Ngauruhoe, and one of those holds both mountains in a single frame.

They come from GeoNet, the same source as Whakaari / White Island and Taranaki and Raoul Island. All seven also appear on the New Zealand page. What time it is out there is worked out in Which cameras are in daylight now.

Where to find Tongariro National Park

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 the cameras by format, region, subject and provider.