Japan 
In numbers.
60m
Height
13m³/s
Average flow
estimate
Jun–Sep
Best months
7.5MW
Water power
estimate
The water at Sgaru Falls, month by month
It roars from June to July.
The fullest months: from June to July. The thinnest: from December to February.
- 4.2 m³/sJan
- 6.0 m³/sFeb
- 8.5 m³/sMar
- 10 m³/sApr
- 11 m³/sMay
- 23 m³/sJun
- 27 m³/sJul
- 19 m³/sAug
- 15 m³/sSep
- 10.0 m³/sOct
- 7.1 m³/sNov
- 5.2 m³/sDec
From about 4.2 m³/s in the lowest month to 27 m³/s in the highest. Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: from June to September.
Estimate: the timing comes from rain, snowmelt and evaporation (NASA POWER, 1991–2020); the amounts from the river model of HydroATLAS (WaterGAP, 1971–2000). Dams upstream can change the real flow.
Waterfall in Japan
Sgaru Falls is a waterfall in Japan. The water falls 60 m over a front 20 m wide.
Getting there.
- Nakamatsunearest town · 7.9 km in a straight line
- Parking 120 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
- Kumamoto Airport (KMJ)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 14 km in a straight lineCar hire at FUK airport (Fukuoka)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From June to Septemberbest 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.
7.5 MW
About 13 m³/s falling 60 m: the power of the water as it drops.
- as much as 2.5 large wind turbines
- enough to power about 1,900 homes, if it were all turned into electricity
Power of falling water = density × gravity × flow × height. Average flow and height as shown above; an estimate.
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 91 m in 1.7 km. Here the river runs about 36 m below the lower rim of its valley.
What is around.
- 3viewpointsヨ・ミュール
- —waymarked walking routes
- 29car parks
- —swimming spots
- —picnic sites
- —toilets
- —information boards and visitor centres
- —bus stops within 1 km
- —other named waterfalls within 4 km
- —caves
- 2campsites
- 8hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 km地獄温泉 清風荘, Aso Little Asia guesthouse, Bellbird and 5 more
- 2restaurants 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
- Nakamatsu7.9 km in a straight line
- Aso10 km in a straight line
- Ōzu11 km in a straight line
- Kawahara12 km in a straight line
- Takamori15 km in a straight line
- Okino18 km in a straight line
- Kikuchi19 km in a straight line
- Kōshi20 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 | 6 | 9 | 13 | 18 | 23 | 26 | 29 | 30 | 26 | 21 | 15 | 9 |
| Night °C | -2 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 12 | 17 | 21 | 22 | 18 | 12 | 6 | 0 |
| Rain & snow (mm) | 69 | 101 | 129 | 156 | 186 | 398 | 396 | 216 | 226 | 125 | 96 | 79 |
| Wet days | 9 | 9 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 18 | 19 | 19 | 15 | 9 | 9 | 9 |
| Sun h/day | 3.7 | 4.4 | 5.5 | 6.0 | 6.1 | 4.0 | 5.0 | 6.4 | 5.0 | 5.2 | 4.5 | 3.6 |
| Snow on the ground (cm) | 6 | 5 | 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 (406 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 | 173% | 122% | 101% | 55% | 121% | 115% | 212% | 42% | 148% | 78% | 72% | 68% |
| 2021 | 71% | 100% | 103% | 80% | 224% | 50% | 58% | 434% | 75% | 32% | 110% | 38% |
| 2022 | 80% | 29% | 120% | 126% | 67% | 68% | 92% | 127% | 157% | 43% | 55% | 47% |
| 2023 | 126% | 86% | 107% | 150% | 195% | 150% | 144% | 125% | 37% | 32% | 53% | 74% |
| 2024 | 59% | 184% | 192% | 149% | 138% | 113% | 89% | 136% | 84% | 186% | 202% | 16% |
| 2025 | 38% | 53% | 119% | 72% | 218% | 117% | 44% | 246% | 116% | 85% | 36% | 72% |
130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual
Compare with the waterfalls nearby.
Sgaru Falls
Japan
- 60 mHeight
- 13 m³/sAverage flow
- Jun–SepBest months
About these numbers
| Names, height, width, river | Wikidata (Q11499646) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| River flow and catchment | HydroATLAS / RiverATLAS v1.0 (Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 |
| 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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