Live camera
Mount Ruapehu, south live camera — North Island
The mountain from the south. Several angles exist because the wind decides which way the steam drifts.
Sample August 2026What you are looking at
A GeoNet camera showing Mount Ruapehu from the south — one of three watching the same mountain from the north, east and south.
It stands 2,797 metres, the highest point on the North Island. Monitoring centres on the summit crater lake and the steam. The bearings are deliberately spread because steam blown downwind cannot be measured from a single view; compare the three and you can guess the day's wind.
The southern flank is the ski-field side. Through the local winter, which is Japan's summer, you can see tracks worked into the snow.
Preparation against lahars has been built up here over the years. On the Whangaehu River, which drains the crater lake, instruments watch the level and the ground shaking and raise an alarm automatically, wired through to closing the railway and the roads. In March 2007 the ash barrier holding the lake back failed and a large lahar came down; the system worked, trains and cars were stopped, and nobody was killed. Which gullies on the mountain are lahar paths is published on maps, and the ski field carries evacuation signs of its own.
New Zealand runs three to four hours ahead of Japan, so a Japanese morning corresponds to the middle of the local day, and by a Japanese evening it is going dark there. Seasons are reversed: for the raw rock, open it during Japan's winter. The still refreshes every ten minutes.
About this camera
| Place | North Island |
| Format | Still, every 10 min |
| Time zone | Pacific/Auckland (UTC+12, DST UTC+13) |
| Category | Volcano |
| Operator | GeoNet New Zealand |
| Terms of use | CC BY 3.0 NZ |
The operator's own 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.
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