Volcano
Whakaari / White Island: 2 Live Cameras
An active volcano in the sea off New Zealand's North Island, watched from two mainland beaches. GeoNet stills every ten minutes — a view of a plume above the horizon on a clear day, from tens of kilometres away.
What you can see
Whakaari / White Island sits offshore in the Bay of Plenty. The island is one volcano, and only the very top of it is above water; most of the mountain is below the sea.
These two cameras are not on the island. They are on the mainland coast. The Whakatane camera looks out toward the island, and the Te Kaha camera looks the same way from a more easterly angle. Having two angles means that when there is a plume, seeing the same thing in both frames confirms you are not imagining it.
The eruption here in December 2019 caught people who were on the island at the time, and many died. The island is privately owned; volcanic monitoring is carried on by GNS Science (GeoNet).
The foreground is the northeastern coast of New Zealand. These are volcano cameras, but they work perfectly well as sea and sky cameras.
Cameras you can watch now: 2
All 2 are still images. Tap one to open it in the camera list.
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Sample August 2026
Whakatane coast
North Island · Volcano · Sea
A monitoring camera looking from the Bay of Plenty shore out towards Whakaari (White Island).
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Sample August 2026
Te Kaha coast
North Island · Volcano · Sea
A camera on the eastern Bay of Plenty coast watching out towards Whakaari (White Island), from further east than the Whakatane view.
When to watch
Whether the island is visible at all comes down to visibility on the day. At this range a little haze is enough to empty the horizon. The day after strong wind has flushed the air through tends to be clearest.
New Zealand runs three to four hours ahead of Japan and around twelve ahead of the UK. Work out local daylight there before you open these; daylight saving shifts it by an hour.
The seasons are inverted too. Southern summer falls in the northern winter, with long days and more clear-air days.
Refresh is every ten minutes — too coarse to follow waves, about right for waiting out cloud.
Where Whakaari / White Island is
Agencies publishing the cameras on this page
- GeoNet New Zealand (CC BY 3.0 NZ) — 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.