Lightning strikes in Japan

The detection network has located 260,165 lightning strikes in Japan since the archive began, including 208,063 in the last 7 days. That is 2.80% of all detected strikes worldwide, ranking Japan #6 of 143 countries with recorded lightning. Japan is counted under Asia in the continent totals.

Daily strikes, last 14 days

Day (UTC)	Detected strikes
2026-08-14	14,220
2026-08-13	52,425
2026-08-12	8,838
2026-08-11	1,423
2026-08-10	1,880
2026-08-09	38,250
2026-08-08	91,027
2026-08-07	28
2026-08-06	524
2026-08-05	67
2026-08-04	2,720
2026-08-03	5,847
2026-08-02	22,721
2026-08-01	308

Strikes by state or province

Regions follow Natural Earth admin-1 boundaries. "Unassigned" counts strikes inside Japan's territory but outside every region polygon, mostly coastal water and lakes.

#	State / province	Strikes	Last 7 days	Share
1	Unassigned	36,840	30,056	14.2%
2	Gifu Prefecture	21,803	10,852	8.4%
3	Fukushima Prefecture	21,261	18,260	8.2%
4	Chiba Prefecture	19,081	18,813	7.3%
5	Nagano Prefecture	18,646	17,347	7.2%
6	Niigata Prefecture	17,707	16,740	6.8%
7	Toyama Prefecture	15,134	15,073	5.8%
8	Tochigi Prefecture	14,344	12,768	5.5%
9	Yamagata Prefecture	10,773	9,495	4.1%
10	Saitama Prefecture	10,669	6,210	4.1%
11	Tokyo	10,104	4,601	3.9%
12	Iwate Prefecture	7,239	5,914	2.8%
13	Ibaraki Prefecture	6,662	6,196	2.6%
14	Aichi Prefecture	6,609	1,458	2.5%
15	Gunma Prefecture	6,388	6,206	2.5%
16	Miyagi Prefecture	6,172	5,992	2.4%
17	Akita Prefecture	4,884	4,761	1.9%
18	Yamanashi Prefecture	4,760	2,747	1.8%
19	Shizuoka Prefecture	3,246	1,639	1.2%
20	Ishikawa Prefecture	3,147	3,147	1.2%
21	Kanagawa Prefecture	2,449	2,006	0.9%
22	Hyōgo Prefecture	2,129	1,837	0.8%
23	Hiroshima Prefecture	1,780	613	0.7%
24	Aomori Prefecture	1,073	1,069	0.4%
25	Fukui Prefecture	965	965	0.4%
26	Okayama Prefecture	910	640	0.3%
27	Wakayama Prefecture	746	70	0.3%
28	Tottori Prefecture	720	717	0.3%
29	Kyōto Prefecture	597	476	0.2%
30	Shimane Prefecture	573	347	0.2%
31	Mie Prefecture	569	565	0.2%
32	Yamaguchi Prefecture	315	3	0.1%
33	Ōsaka Prefecture	293	50	0.1%
34	Kumamoto Prefecture	263	12	0.1%
35	Hokkaidō	248	241	0.1%
36	Nagasaki Prefecture	228	23	0.1%
37	Kōchi Prefecture	144	6	0.1%
38	Okinawa Prefecture	127	30	0.0%
39	Nara Prefecture	121	31	0.0%
40	Fukuoka Prefecture	92	5	0.0%
41	Saga Prefecture	73	3	0.0%
42	Ehime Prefecture	59	6	0.0%
43	Shiga Prefecture	52	45	0.0%
44	Tokushima Prefecture	49	11	0.0%
45	Kagoshima Prefecture	40	9	0.0%
46	Miyazaki Prefecture	37	4	0.0%
47	Ōita Prefecture	35	2	0.0%
48	Kagawa Prefecture	9	2	0.0%

These are detected strikes, and detection coverage differs by region; the data hub explains the method and its limits. For the climatological picture, see which countries get the most lightning.

See Japan's next strike live

The live map plots every detected strike within seconds and times the thunder to your position.

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