Live camera
Mount Iwate live camera — Iwate
Rising northwest of Morioka, also called Nambu-Fuji. A clean cone from the west, a ragged ridge from the east — the outline is entirely different.
Sample August 2026What you are looking at
One of the volcanoes the Japan Meteorological Agency keeps under constant watch. It rises northwest of Morioka to 2,038 metres and is also called Nambu-Fuji.
The nickname belongs to one viewpoint. From the west it is a clean, long-skirted cone; swing round to the east and the ridgeline is broken and ragged, as if it were a different mountain altogether. That is because an older cone collapsed and a line of newer craters grew on top of it, so which mountain you see depends on where you stand.
This mountain has collapsed on a large scale at least seven times, more than any other active volcano in Japan. In the eruption record, ash fell heavily on the castle town of Morioka in 1686, and in January 1732 lava ran down the north-east slope for 3.4 kilometres at up to 1.1 kilometres wide. Called Yakehashiri, it still carries no trees nearly 300 years on and remains a field of bare lava.
First snow falls on 13 October in an average year. On the morning after it lands, the white and the dark rock separate most sharply.
In 1998 volcanic earthquakes increased sharply, an eruption was held to be possible, and the trails were closed. No eruption came in the end, but the mountain was not fully open again until 2004. With a body as ready to collapse as this one, what is watched for is less the eruption itself than the mountain coming down.
Mornings are better. Cloud builds over the Tohoku mountains in the afternoon, and on many days the summit is hidden by early afternoon. A still image refreshed every two minutes lets you wait for a break in the cloud and open it again.
About this camera
| Place | Iwate |
| Format | Still, every 2 min |
| Time zone | Asia/Tokyo (UTC+9) |
| Category | Volcano · Nature |
| Operator | Japan Meteorological Agency — volcano surveillance cameras |
| Terms of use | PDL 1.0 |
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.