Live cameras in Honchō, Japan

Honcho is part of Nanae, a town in Kameda District, Oshima Subprefecture, just north of Hakodate in southern Hokkaido. Nanae spreads over about 217 square kilometers of farms, forest and lakes, and its name joins two older villages, Nanae and Iida. National Route 5 and the JR Hakodate Main Line run through it, linking the town with Hakodate to the south and Sapporo farther north. At its northern edge rises Hokkaido-Komagatake, a 1,131 m stratovolcano with a broken, jagged summit that marks the boundary with neighboring towns.

The three cameras on this page are run by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) and look at Komagatake from Shikabe Park on the southeast side, from Akaigawa and from Kengamine, the summit area. The volcano is about 19 km north of Honcho. JMA posts a fresh image every couple of minutes so forecasters can watch for ash, steam and changes around the craters, and it pairs them with seismic data when setting the Volcanic Alert Level, from 1 (potential for increased activity) up to 5 (evacuate). Komagatake has a violent record: in 1640 a collapse of the cone sent a debris avalanche into the sea, raising a tsunami that killed more than 700 people. A one-day Plinian eruption in June 1929 spread pumice widely, and the last eruptive period ran from September to November 2000.

When to look

The area keeps Japan Standard Time, UTC+9, all year, with no clock change. Clear winter days show the peak white with snow, while the rainy months of summer more often wrap the summit in cloud. In autumn the birch and maple forests around the lakes turn red and gold beneath the mountain.

The classic view is from Onuma Quasi-National Park, where lakes Onuma and Konuma, formed when mudflows from the volcano dammed hollows at its base, are scattered with small wooded islands. Hakodate's harbor and its hill lookout are a short drive south.

Sources: Nanae, Hokkaido - Wikipedia · Hokkaido Komagatake - Wikipedia · Onuma Quasi-National Park - Wikipedia · Eruptions of Komagatake Volcano in historical times - Geological Survey of Japan.