Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How high is the Mount Fuji Research Station (former Mt. Fuji weather station)?

A: The altitude is 3776 meters, six times as high as Tokyo Sky Tree which boasts a height of 634 meters. The Research Station is also the nearest laboratory to the Space Station in Japan.

Q: Why has the Mt. Fuji Weather Station been unmanned?

A: In 1964, weather RADAR was installed at the site to instantaneously detect tyhoons approaching Japan in any direction within a range of 800 kilometers ; a measure takenin response to the great damage from the Isewan Typhoon (Tyhoon Vera) that hit the country in September 1959 and left more than 5,000 people dead or missing.
However, because of the development of meteorological satellites and technologies that enable collection of meteorological data from remote areas, the Japan Meteorological Agency stopped using the weather radar for observation in 1999, and since 2004, the station has been unmanned.

Q: Why is Mount Fuji Research Station the optimum site to observe the atmosphere?

A: Mt. Fuji's advantage in observing such substances lies in the fact that data can be collected without direct influence from automobile and factory fuel emissions because the mountain is located away from metropolitan areas.
Moreover the summit of Mt. Fuji extends into the free troposphere，the atmosphere between an altitude of one kilometer above ground and the stratosphere. In this layer, substances travel long distances without being subject to land surface frictions.
Since substances generated on the Eurasian Continent are carried from west to east by westerly winds generated in the mid-latitude of the northern hemisphere, Mt. Fuji, located at the eastern edge of the Eurasian Continent, is the optimum site for such observation.

In addition, recently,  the station is also found to be an ideal site for the lightning research, especially for the observation of summer lightnings whose clounds are higher than 4 km.