Live cameras in Gotemba, Japan

Gotemba is a city in eastern Shizuoka Prefecture on the southeastern slope of Mount Fuji, at elevations of roughly 250 to 600 m. Its 195 square kilometers sit between Fuji to the northwest, the Hakone mountains to the east and the Tanzawa range to the north. About 88,000 people lived here in 2019. Rice grown with Fuji's spring water, light industry, golf courses and the large Gotemba Premium Outlets shape the local economy, and the Tomei Expressway and JR Gotemba Line link it with Tokyo and Numazu. The Ground Self-Defense Force trains on the wide East Fuji Maneuver Area above town.

The cameras on this page do not look at Fuji itself. They are the Japan Meteorological Agency's (JMA) views of Hakoneyama, a complex volcano with two overlapping calderas whose center is about 11 km east of Gotemba. One looks from Miyagino, one at Owakudani, the steaming valley of fumaroles and sulfur vents, and one from Hakone Pass. JMA posts a fresh image every couple of minutes. Forecasters use them to watch steam plumes and any ash, alongside earthquake and ground-tilt data, when setting the Volcanic Alert Level from 1 to 5. In 2015 rising earthquake activity led JMA to raise Hakone from Level 1 to 2 on May 6, and after a small steam-driven eruption at Owakudani it went to Level 3 on June 30.

When to look

Gotemba keeps Japan Standard Time, UTC+9, all year. Late autumn and winter bring the clearest skies, and early mornings are best before clouds rise. Summer is hazy and humid, with the June rainy season often hiding the mountains. The Fuji climbing season on the Gotemba trail, the longest route to the summit with a gain of about 2,300 m, runs from July 10 to September 10; its new fifth station sits at 1,440 m, and climbers often run down the loose gravel slope of Osunabashiri on the way back.

To the south, our Ito page has JMA cameras on the East Izu volcanoes and Izu-Oshima.

Sources: Gotemba, Shizuoka - Wikipedia · Mount Hakone - Wikipedia · Chronology of the 2015 eruption of Hakone volcano (Earth, Planets and Space) · Mt. Fuji Climbing Official Site: Comparison of routes.