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Volcanoes of the Oshima Peninsula: 2 Live Cameras in Japan

The Oshima Peninsula reaches southwest out of Hokkaido toward the Tsugaru Strait. Two active volcanoes stand on its eastern side — Hokkaido Komagatake and Mount Esan — watched here by two Meteorological Agency cameras.

What you can see

Hokkaido Komagatake got its jagged outline from the eruption of 1640, when the summit collapsed. The debris reached the sea, and a tsunami in Uchiura Bay is on record from it. The camera looks at the bare rock of the summit head-on, from the Shikabe side on the bay.

Mount Esan stands at the eastern tip of the peninsula, pushed out into the Tsugaru Strait. The fumarole field on its flank is still active — you can see the white threads rising — and in early summer the slope turns red with azalea.

Both are continuously monitored volcanoes. These cameras exist to watch the mountain for change, not to show a view, which is why the framing never moves: the same composition holds for years.

Cameras you can watch now: 2

All 2 are still images. Tap one to open it in the camera list.

When to watch

Morning is the safe bet. These are coastal mountains and cloud builds through the day, so the summits often disappear by afternoon.

By season, the dividing lines are early summer, when Esan's slope reddens, and winter into spring, when snow settles on Komagatake's rock. Komagatake's upper slopes are bare of trees, so snow makes the shape read sharply.

Both refresh every two minutes. They are still images, so there is almost nothing after dark.

If it isn't showing

Both are Japan Meteorological Agency monitoring cameras, framed to watch the mountain. The framing does not move, so the same composition runs for years. The refresh is every two minutes, but these are stills, so you cannot see cloud moving across. Once the light goes, almost nothing shows.

The Oshima Peninsula faces Honshu across the Tsugaru Strait. The Mount Esan camera takes in the sea as well, so on a bad day the whiteness of the water tells you how hard the wind is blowing before the mountain does. Hokkaido has 17 cameras, nine of them Meteorological Agency volcano cameras; all of them are listed on the Hokkaido page.

These two are the southernmost cameras in Hokkaido. The nearest others are the four on Shikotsu-Toya; Akan-Mashu, Mount Tokachi and Asahidake, Daisetsuzan lie in the east and the centre of the island, a long way off.

Where to find Volcanoes of the Oshima Peninsula

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.