Kurumayama Weather Radar Station, Weather radar station in Chino, Japan

Kurumayama Weather Radar Station, known as the Nagano Radar, is a Japan Meteorological Agency facility on Mount Kurumayama in Chino, Nagano Prefecture. Its 4-meter parabolic antenna sits inside a spherical radome at an altitude of 1,937.1 meters, the highest of any operating JMA radar, and rotates at 5320.0 MHz to observe precipitation.

The station opened on November 1, 1999, and marked a step forward in monitoring weather over the rugged interior of Nagano Prefecture. Before it opened, tracking weather events in this part of the mountains was much harder to do reliably.

The station is unmanned and is controlled and monitored remotely from the Nagano Local Meteorological Observatory, part of the Tokyo Regional Headquarters. Its official observation point name is simply "Nagano", and it is commonly called the "Nagano Radar".

The facility sits on a mountain summit, so the access roads are winding and can become slippery quickly depending on the season. Going on a day with settled weather makes the drive safer and gives a clearer view of the surroundings.

The radar antenna is visible from outside and stands out for its dome shape, which protects it from harsh mountain weather. This type of protective cover, called a radome, lets radar waves pass through while keeping wind and snow away.