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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.

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.

If it isn't showing

Both cameras stand on the mainland coast, with tens of kilometres of open sea between them and the island. Neither is a close view of the crater. Even when the vent is steaming, it shows up as a small pale smudge above the horizon. Stills, one every ten minutes, and nothing at night.

Both sit on the Bay of Plenty coast, Whakatane to the west and Te Kaha further east. Cloud over the water often covers only one of the two angles, so open both before deciding the island is not showing today.

They come from GeoNet, the same source as the cameras on Tongariro National Park and Taranaki and Raoul Island. Both 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 Whakaari / White Island

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.