Japan 
In numbers.
34m
Height
Jun–Jul
Sep–Oct
Best months
241m
Elevation
The water at Ōtaru Falls, month by month
It roars from June to October.
The fullest months: from June to October.
- 27%Jan
- 35%Feb
- 48%Mar
- 59%Apr
- 68%May
- 96%Jun
- 100%Jul
- 81%Aug
- 89%Sep
- 76%Oct
- 52%Nov
- 37%Dec
Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: from June to July and from September to October.
Estimate from rain, snowmelt and evaporation month by month (NASA POWER, 1991–2020) around the falls. Dams upstream can change the real flow.
Waterfall in Kochi, Japan
Ōtaru Falls is a waterfall in Japan. The water falls 34 m.
Getting there.
- Ochinearest town · 1.9 km in a straight line
- Parking 1,070 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
- Kochi Ryoma Airport (KCZ)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 40 km in a straight lineCar hire at KCZ airport (Nankoku)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From June to July and from September to Octoberbest months to go (estimate)
Plan your visit
Stay, explore and get there
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
How big is it?
How big it really is.
Height of the drop from Wikidata. Buildings and the person are drawn at the same scale.
Seen from the sky.
8 × 8 km of cloud-free satellite image, with what OpenStreetMap knows around the falls.
N
2 km
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 8 × 8 km, north up. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.
The line follows the river as mapped in OpenStreetMap; heights from the 30 m Copernicus model, which smooths narrow drops — the published height of the falls is the one above.
Around the falls the river drops 245 m in 1.9 km. Here the river runs about 170 m below the lower rim of its valley.
What is around.
- 1viewpoints
- —waymarked walking routes
- 14car parks
- —swimming spots
- —picnic sites
- 1toilets
- 1information boards and visitor centres
- —bus stops within 1 km
- —other named waterfalls within 4 km
- —caves
- 2campsites小浜キャンプ場
- —hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 km
- 1restaurants and cafés within 3 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, up to 2 km around the falls (unless noted). A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
Towns nearby
- Ochi1.9 km in a straight line
- Sakawa3.9 km in a straight line
- Fudaba8.5 km in a straight line
- Ikegawa11 km in a straight line
- Hidaka12 km in a straight line
- Susaki14 km in a straight line
- Ino18 km in a straight line
- Tosa19 km in a straight line
Weather
The weather, month by month.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afternoon °C | 8 | 10 | 13 | 19 | 24 | 26 | 30 | 31 | 27 | 22 | 16 | 10 |
| Night °C | 0 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 13 | 18 | 22 | 23 | 19 | 13 | 7 | 2 |
| Rain & snow (mm) | 63 | 96 | 129 | 161 | 198 | 296 | 282 | 212 | 262 | 174 | 101 | 84 |
| Wet days | 7 | 8 | 11 | 11 | 12 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 15 | 11 | 9 | 7 |
| Sun h/day | 4.8 | 4.9 | 5.7 | 6.3 | 6.1 | 4.1 | 5.4 | 6.5 | 5.0 | 5.1 | 4.6 | 4.3 |
| Snow on the ground (cm) | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (241 m) at −6.5 °C per 1,000 m. Not a forecast.
Photos
Through visitors' eyes.
Recent years
Wet years and dry years
Rain of each month as a share of the 1991–2020 average. A wet season above 100 % usually means a fuller waterfall.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 192% | 92% | 111% | 110% | 100% | 102% | 211% | 18% | 124% | 102% | 82% | 56% |
| 2021 | 126% | 88% | 127% | 104% | 176% | 72% | 97% | 307% | 88% | 40% | 145% | 45% |
| 2022 | 63% | 36% | 110% | 100% | 78% | 58% | 146% | 37% | 119% | 27% | 99% | 48% |
| 2023 | 94% | 52% | 104% | 236% | 211% | 157% | 90% | 183% | 42% | 15% | 69% | 56% |
| 2024 | 47% | 172% | 165% | 132% | 178% | 138% | 78% | 188% | 41% | 136% | 164% | 4% |
| 2025 | 36% | 38% | 136% | 95% | 222% | 117% | 87% | 104% | 124% | 121% | 52% | 44% |
130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual
Compare with the waterfalls nearby.
Ōtaru Falls
Japan
- 34 mHeight
- —Average flow
- Jun–Jul, Sep–OctBest months
About these numbers
| Names, height, width, river | Wikidata (Q11436522) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Climate | NASA POWER, 1991–2020 |
| Relief, river profile, 3D model | Copernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Paths, viewpoints, parking | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
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