Japan 
In numbers.
181m
Height
7m
Width
Jul–Oct
Best months
770m
Elevation
The water at Sankai Falls, month by month
It roars from July to November.
The fullest months: from July to November. Below −4 °C on average (from January to February): the falls can partly freeze.
- 66%Jan
- 58%Feb
- 66%Mar
- 74%Apr
- 64%May
- 62%Jun
- 100%Jul
- 94%Aug
- 89%Sep
- 96%Oct
- 77%Nov
- 66%Dec
Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: from July 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 Miyagi Prefecture, Japan
Sankai Falls is a waterfall in Japan. The water falls 181 m over a front 7 m wide.
Getting there.
- Kawasakinearest town · 10 km in a straight line
- Parking 1,250 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
- Yamagata Airport (GAJ)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 34 km in a straight lineCar hire at SYO airport (Shonai)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From July 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 148 m in 2.9 km.
What is around.
- 2viewpoints
- —waymarked walking routes
- 3car parks
- —swimming spots
- —picnic sites
- 2toilets
- —information boards and visitor centres
- —bus stops within 1 km
- 4other named waterfalls within 4 km三階滝, 不動滝, 地蔵滝 and 1 more
- —caves
- 1campsitesAONE×MATKA(アオネマトカ)
- 27hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 kmラフォーレ蔵王, バーデン家 壮鳳, 旅館 権兵衛 and 24 more
- 6restaurants 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
- Kawasaki10 km in a straight line
- Nagano12 km in a straight line
- Shiroishi16 km in a straight line
- Murata17 km in a straight line
- Seki18 km in a straight line
- Yamagata18 km in a straight line
- Ōkawara20 km in a straight line
- Kaminoyama22 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 | -2 | -1 | 4 | 11 | 16 | 20 | 24 | 25 | 21 | 15 | 8 | 2 |
| Night °C | -9 | -8 | -5 | 0 | 6 | 11 | 15 | 16 | 12 | 6 | -1 | -6 |
| Rain & snow (mm) | 97 | 62 | 82 | 84 | 86 | 113 | 202 | 149 | 138 | 143 | 94 | 111 |
| Wet days | 20 | 16 | 14 | 12 | 12 | 14 | 18 | 15 | 15 | 14 | 16 | 20 |
| Sun h/day | 2.6 | 3.6 | 4.5 | 5.6 | 5.8 | 5.2 | 3.7 | 4.9 | 4.3 | 4.0 | 3.3 | 2.2 |
| Snow on the ground (cm) | 19 | 17 | 12 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 15 |
Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (770 m) at −6.5 °C per 1,000 m. Not a forecast.
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 | 111% | 103% | 105% | 176% | 71% | 64% | 229% | 62% | 121% | 58% | 55% | 92% |
| 2021 | 101% | 163% | 101% | 113% | 97% | 77% | 74% | 121% | 80% | 86% | 127% | 146% |
| 2022 | 85% | 119% | 103% | 119% | 96% | 119% | 84% | 137% | 85% | 49% | 97% | 128% |
| 2023 | 61% | 96% | 83% | 90% | 187% | 275% | 65% | 37% | 130% | 62% | 134% | 81% |
| 2024 | 118% | 103% | 168% | 80% | 143% | 84% | 156% | 105% | 167% | 91% | 122% | 78% |
| 2025 | 103% | 120% | 91% | 125% | 220% | 93% | 19% | 147% | 209% | 143% | 104% | 118% |
130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual
Compare with the waterfalls nearby.
Sankai Falls
Japan
- 181 mHeight
- —Average flow
- Jul–OctBest months
About these numbers
| Names, height, width, river | Wikidata (Q11358292) · 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.
The family
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