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Volcano

Volcanic lakes: 10 Live Cameras — Kussharo and Crater Lake

Ten lakes made by volcanoes: water in a collapsed basin, water in a crater, water behind fallen rubble. How a lake formed decides how it fits the frame.

What you can see

Volcanoes make lakes in three ways. Each of these ten cameras shows one of them.

The first is a caldera. After a large eruption drains the magma below, the top of the mountain drops into the space it left, and water collects in the basin. Lake Kussharo is the largest caldera lake in Japan; the camera looks down on it, and on the island at its centre, from high on Bihoro Pass. Lake Towada is a caldera nested inside another caldera, and two cameras watch it: one from the lookout on Hakka Pass, one run by the Japan Meteorological Agency, which treats the lake as an active volcano. Lake Shikotsu is deep enough that it barely freezes, even in winter. At Lake Toya the camera is aimed at Mount Usu across the water, so the lake fills the foreground. Abroad, Crater Lake formed the same way, and is known for a blue that seems to pull the eye down.

The second is a crater lake. The water sits in the vent itself rather than in a collapsed basin, so it is far smaller. Okama, on Mount Zao, is strongly acidic with dissolved volcanic gas, and shifts from emerald green to milky white from day to day. Mount Ruapehu in New Zealand holds a lake in its summit crater, and both its level and its temperature are monitored. Jigokunuma, on Hakkoda, is water clouded by steam and hot water from below.

The third is a blockage. In 1888 the northern half of Mount Bandai collapsed, and the debris that ran down dammed the rivers; the ponds scattered across Urabandai are what was left. Lake Renge is one of them. This camera looks across water an eruption made at the scar the same eruption left.

The difference shows in how much fits the frame. A caldera lake is too wide, so the camera has to look down from a pass or a ridge and stops at the far shore. A crater lake fits whole in a single frame. A blocked lake puts the water and the mountain that caused it in the same picture.

Cameras you can watch now: 10

All 10 are still images. Tap one to open it in the camera list.

When to watch

Morning. Most of these cameras sit high on a mountain or a pass, and high ground grows cloud before noon. On many days the view is clear only early.

The shores change colour in autumn. Leaves usually turn around late September at Mount Zao, mid-October at Lake Towada and Mount Bandai, and late October at Urabandai, shifting by one or two weeks from year to year. The average date of the first snowcap (1991-2020) is 19 October for Hakkoda and 28 October for Mount Zao.

In winter the water itself changes. Lake Kussharo freezes, and when conditions line up the ice splits and buckles into ridges. Lake Shikotsu, being deep, barely freezes at all. Two lakes in the same prefecture, two completely different winters.

The two cameras abroad are on other clocks. Crater Lake is on the US west coast; Ruapehu is in the southern hemisphere, where the seasons are reversed. Which cameras are in daylight now explains how to pick a time.

Refresh rates differ by source: every two minutes for the four cameras run by the Meteorological Agency, once an hour for the four run by the Ministry of the Environment, every ten minutes for the GeoNet one. All ten are still images, so little shows once the light goes.

If it isn't showing

The sources are the Japan Meteorological Agency, the Ministry of the Environment (Internet Nature Research Institute), the US National Park Service and GeoNet in New Zealand. If a camera shows nothing, What is happening when a live camera shows nothing explains why.

Each lake also has its own page: Akan-Mashu (Kussharo), Lake Towada, Shikotsu-Toya (Shikotsu and Toya), Okama, Mount Zao, Mount Bandai (Lake Renge), Tongariro National Park (Ruapehu) and US and Korean National Parks (Crater Lake). Jigokunuma is on The Volcanoes of Tohoku.

To follow them by season, see Autumn Leaves and First Snowcap. The craters and cones themselves are gathered under Volcano, and the lakes and wetlands under Nature.

Where to find Volcanic lakes

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.