Typhoon Nangka continues on course towards Japan: AIR analysis

The Insurance Journal: Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide has released an analysis of Typhoon Nangka, which is currently a Category 3 storm “with a central pressure of 950 mb and maximum 10-minute sustained wind speeds of 80 knots (~106 mph 1-minute sustained). The storm is located approximately 1,250 km (775 miles) from Iwakuni, Japan, Nangka, and is moving northward at 15 km/h (9 mph).

“Once the intensity of a Category 4 Super Typhoon, Nangka has weakened and maintained its current intensity for the last 72 hours,” said Dr. Anna Trevino, scientist at AIR Worldwide. “It is located in a favorable environment with very little vertical wind shear and warm sea surface temperatures, but nearby dry air is being wrapped into the center, preventing further convective growth and intensification.

 “High pressure to the northeast is steering Nangka toward Japan, and the typhoon is forecast to make landfall as a Category 2 or weak Category 3 storm between the isla
nds of Kyushu and Shikoku Thursday (local time) and rapidly weaken. Because landfall is not for at least 48 hours, there is uncertainty in the intensity of the storm at landfall. This is the first typhoon landfall in Mainland Japan has seen in 2015, with the exception of Typhoon Noul, which quickly weakened before making landfall as an extratropical storm in May.”

According to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), Nangka is expected to slightly strengthen over warm ocean waters during the next two days before landfall, causing rough seas, anticipated to impact shipping....

Typhoon Nangka on July 13, 2015, via NASA

Two dead as Typhoon Noul slams Philippines on way to Japan

M. Alex Johnson in NBC News: At least two people were killed and almost 4,000 others were forced to evacuate their homes as Typhoon Noul slammed into the northern Philippines, the national disaster agency said Monday.

Noul — called Typhoon Dodong locally — weakened slightly as it hovered about 137 miles northeast of the Batanes Islands at around 7:15 p.m. local time (7:15 a.m. ET) on Monday. The typhoon was packing winds of 87 mph and gusts of up to 106 mph.

Earlier, waves of 46 feet were recorded in the open ocean off the coast, according to the weather bureau. Noul was gathering speed and was expected to start heading for southern Japan by Tuesday.

NDRRMC, the national disaster agency, said Noul made a direct hit Sunday with buckets of rain and mammoth waves. Two men, ages 74 and 46, were electrocuted while trying to repair their damaged roof Sunday in Cagayan Province northeast of Luzon, the agency said. About 3,800 people remained in shelters Monday morning in Isabela and Cagayan provinces, where large areas were without power.

Despite the destruction wrought by Noul, it also brought much needed rains to rice and corn farms that had been hit by intense summer heat....

Typhoon Noul shot by NASA, May 8, 2015

Heavy snow kills 5, disrupts travel in Japan

Terra Daily via AFP: At least five people have died in heavy snow that has blanketed swathes of Japan, reports said Thursday, with more than two metres (6ft 7ins) lying in some places and more forecast.

Two elderly women were killed on the northernmost island of Hokkaido, Kyodo News reported, with one hit by a snow-plough and another buried when a warehouse collapsed under the weight of fallen snow. Two men, meanwhile, died in traffic accidents on snow-bound roads, one in Hokkaido and the other in Hiroshima further south, police said.

Another man, 68, was discovered dead outside his home in Niigata on the main island of Honshu, police said, with reports saying he had fallen from the garage roof while removing snow.

There was also widespread disruption to travel, with around 100 domestic flights cancelled, adding to the 450 that were grounded on Wednesday, including some international routes, officials and media said....

Snow in Sapporo in 2009, shot by aokomoriuta, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license  

Powerful typhoon churns toward Okinawa with strong winds

Reuters: A large powerful typhoon moved slowly towards Japan's Okinawa island chain on Saturday, packing heavy winds that disrupted flights and knocked out power.

Typhoon Vongfong, Japan's strongest storm this year, at 0500 GMT Saturday was about 150 km (94 miles) southeast of Naha City, the biggest city in Okinawa, and moving north at 15 kph (9 mph), Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.

Its winds gusted up to 234 kph (146 mph). Fourteen people in Okinawa and Kagoshima prefecture in Kyushu were injured due to strong winds, the Mainichi newspaper reported.

It was likely to be closest to Okinawa - 1,600 km (1,000 miles) southwest of Tokyo, and the home of the largest contingent of U.S. troops in Japan - on Sunday morning Japan time, local media reports said.

The typhoon was expected to weaken as it moved north, however, and likely to hit land on Monday morning on the westernmost main island of Kyushu, before moving northeast towards Japan's main island of Honshu on Tuesday....

Typhoon Vongfong shot by NASA, October 10, 2014

Typhoon Phanfone churns toward Tokyo with heavy wind, rain

Reuters: Typhoon Phanfone, which was downgraded from an earlier status of a super typhoon, is moving northeast at 25 kph (16 mph), after lashing parts of the Kyushu and Okinawa islands, the Japan Meteorological Agency said on Sunday.

About 30 cm (12 inches) of rain and heavy wind are forecast for eastern Japan, including the Tokyo metropolitan area. ... Toyota Motor Corp plans to halt production on Monday morning at 12 plants in Japan due to the storm, a company spokesman said.

On Sunday, several airlines, including All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines Co, canceled over 150 flights to several southern Japanese cities, broadcaster NHK said. Kyushu Electric Power Co said about 18,500 households were without power late Sunday afternoon.

Nansei Sekiyu, a Japanese refiner wholly owned by Brazil's Petrobras, has suspended marine operations at its 100,000 barrels-per-dayrefinery in Okinawa due to the typhoon, but other operations are unaffected, a company spokesman said....

Typhoon Phanfone on October 5, 2014

Japan landslide: Death toll in Hiroshima climbs to 46

Australia Network News: The death toll from huge landslides in Japan's Hiroshima prefecture has risen to 46, with at least 41 people still missing. A Hiroshima police spokesman says rescuers uncovered six more bodies on Saturday morning

Emergency service personnel are continuing the search for survivors three days after torrential rains triggered the mountainside disaster. Volunteers from other parts of the country have joined the rescue effort to back up nearly 3,000 police officers, firefighters and soldiers already involved.

The rain stopped by early on Saturday but there are concerns about new landslides because the weather bureau is predicting another heavy downpour by the evening. Firefighters and soldiers are removing debris by hand where possible because of concerns about using heavy machinery....

An aerial view of Kure, Hiroshima, shot by EEIM, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license

Japan landslides kill 32 in Hiroshima prefecture

BBC News: At least 32 people have been killed in landslides that struck Japan's Hiroshima prefecture, officials say. The landslides happened in a residential area near a mountain in the Hiroshima city outskirts.

They were triggered after the equivalent of a month's rain fell in the 24 hours up to Wednesday morning, Japan's weather agency said. Images from the scene showed houses buried in mud and rocks, as rescue teams worked their way towards homes.

Another nine people are still missing, said authorities. Another local government official said some people were swept away and it was "hard to know exactly how many are unaccounted for", AP reported.

The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes says that several of those killed were children....

Onomichi Channel in Hiroshima Prefecture, shot by 663highland, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 2.5 license 

Japan to assist with disaster risk reduction training in Latin America and the Caribbean

Continuity Central: On July 31st 2014, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) signed a Memorandum of Cooperation for the ‘Disaster Risk Reduction Training Program for Latin America and the Caribbean’ with the Chilean International Cooperation Agency (AGCI).

The Memorandum of Cooperation will enable JICA to assist with disaster risk reduction training in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Through the combination of Japan and Chile’s disaster management resources, the program is designed to efficiently and effectively develop human resources with a high level of specialization, as well as to improve the capacity of government officials to respond to actual disasters. The program also aims to build a regional network for sharing experiences and knowledge from other Latin America and the Caribbean countries....

Typhoon Halong leaves 10 dead in Japan

Space Daily via AFP: At least 10 people died and dozens were injured as Typhoon Halong hurtled across the Japanese archipelago at the weekend, reports said Monday, with heavy rain still lashing the country's north.

The storm moved over the Sea of Japan (East Sea) and lurched towards Russia's far east coast Monday, after sweeping across Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. The outer bands of the storm continued to lash northern Japan with heavy rain as officials warned of landslides, floods and possible tornadoes in the area. The Japan Meteorological Agency downgraded the typhoon at 9:00 am Monday as it was off the Russian coast.

The National Police Agency confirmed that the storm, as well as heavy rain last week, killed at least two people and left two others missing. A total of 96 people were injured, public broadcaster NHK reported.

But the Nikkei newspaper said that 10 deaths were linked to the storm with two others missing. Among the victims, the body of an Iranian man was found in Ibaraki, northeast of Tokyo, while two Japanese women died in the country's west, the Nikkei said....

Keith Edkins created this  Track map of Typhoon Halong of the 2014 Pacific typhoon season. The points show the location of the storm at 6-hour intervals. The colour represents the storm's maximum sustained wind speeds as classified in the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale

Typhoon Halong rips through western Japan

Terra Daily via AFP: Typhoon Halong slammed into western Japan on Sunday, making landfall on the main Honshu island as the weather agency issued its highest alert.

The strong typhoon hit Japan's largest and most populous island at around 10:00 am (0100 GMT) near the city of Ako on the southwest coast, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

Packing winds of up to 162 kilometres per hour, the typhoon barrelled in to the smaller western island of Shikoku earlier Sunday, with huge waves battering the coast.

On Honshu, the weather agency maintained its highest warning -- meaning a threat to life and the risk of massive damage -- for Mie prefecture, some 300 kilometres (190 miles) west of Tokyo, warning that "unprecedented" torrential rain in the area could trigger massive landslides or major floods.

Storms and torrential rain earlier this week left one dead and 25 injured, Japan's public broadcaster NHK said....

NASA of Halong on August 10, 2014

People are dying because of a heat wave in Japan

Kate Zavadski in New York magazine: Climate change sure is taking a toll on Japan. The island nation is in the middle of a heat wave so severe, it has taken the lives of at least fifteen people in the last week. More than 8,000 others have had to visit the ER, almost half of them over age 65.

The hottest day so far was Saturday, when nearly 2,000 people were rushed to the hospital as temperatures in many cities topped 95 degrees Fahrenheit. And unfortunately, the heat shows no signs of abating. A weather.com forecast for Otsuki, Japan — a city whose weekend temperatures reached 102 degrees Fahrenheit — shows highs in the 90s for most of this week. Tokyo is projected to hover in the upper 80s, but expected thunderstorms are sure to ramp up the humidity in both cities.

Japan is hit particularly hard by extreme temperatures because of its aging population. About 25 percent of Japanese citizens are age 65 or older, compared to just 14 percent in the United States. This isn't the first time a heat wave took a heavy human toll on Japan, either: Just last year, record high temperatures killed 17 people there, and hospitalized almost 10,000 others....

A panoram of Otsuki, shot by jonny-mt, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Tropical Storm Neoguri hits Japan's mainland

The Weather Channel: Tropical Storm Neoguri, previously the strongest typhoon so far in the 2014 Western Pacific season, is now scraping mainland Japan after raking Okinawa with torrential rain and hurricane-force winds.

According to the Japanese Meteorological Agency, Neoguri's center made landfall near the city of Akune in Kagoshima Prefecture just before 7 a.m. Japanese time Thursday (6 p.m. Wednesday Eastern time in the U.S.). Akune is on the west coast of Kyushu, the southwesternmost of Japan's four main islands.

Maximum 10-minute sustained winds were estimated at 60 mph at the time of landfall, equivalent to
maximum winds of 65 to 70 mph using the U.S. 1-minute sustained wind standard.

Neoguri continues to weaken as it interacts with the jet stream coming off northern China and the Korean Peninsula. These upper-level winds have also turned Neoguri sharply east-northeast into the Japanese mainland. The center of Neoguri should track off the coast of eastern Japan by Friday morning, transitioning to a post-tropical cyclone.

Pockets of heavy rain and some minor wind damage (tree limbs, sporadic power outages) are possible before the low moves offshore. Landslides are a major concern given the rugged terrain of the main islands....

NASA image of Neoguri when it was still a typhoon, July 9, 2014

Kyushu evacuates 90,000 as typhoon approaches

Jacob Adelman in Bloomberg News: Typhoon Neoguri headed toward Japan’s southernmost main island of Kyushu, prompting the evacuation of almost 90,000 people amid the threat of floods and landslides.

Neoguri was west of Kyushu with top winds reaching 148 kilometers (92 miles) per hour, down from yesterday’s 252 kph, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The storm, which was heading east as of 7:50 pm local time, left 20 injured in Okinawa yesterday, where it grounded flights and prompted evacuations.

Parts of Kyushu will probably be hit by tomorrow with violent winds, swollen rivers and waves up to 10 meters high, the weather agency reported on its website. While rain brought by the storm will generally amount to 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) to 3 inches, some areas may get as much as 5 inches, leading to “localized flooding in higher terrain,” says Commodity Weather Group LLC.

“The storm is weakening just slightly faster and should be down to tropical storm force winds, 55 knots (102 kph), at landfall in southwestern Japan in about 12 hours,” David Streit, a forecaster at CWG in Bethesda, Maryland, said in an e-mail received at 6:23 p.m. Tokyo time. “Winds will be down to 35 knots when it passes Tokyo about 24 hours later.”

Officials in the Kyushu city of Amakusa urged 87,327 residents today to take shelter in gyms and other buildings being used as evacuation centers, as the storm threatened homes, public broadcaster NHK reported on its website....

The eyewall of Neoguri seen July 7, 2014, from the International Space Station

Typhoon Neoguri threatens western Japan's already weak grid

Clint Richards in The Diplomat: Japan has been preparing for Typhoon Neoguri since last weekend, and on Tuesday it began battering Japan’s southernmost Ryukyu Islands, which include Okinawa and its 1.2 million people. The typhoon will be one of the biggest many parts of southern and western Japan have seen in decades, with Commander James Hecker U.S. Air Force’s 18th wing in Kadena saying Neoguri will be the biggest typhoon Okinawa has seen in 15 years. As Okinawa and Kyushu prepare to take the brunt of what was until Monday categorized as a “super typhoon,” local infrastructure will be pushed to its limits, especially in Kyushu, where the area is saturated from heavy rains last week.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency has issued an alert for Okinawa’s main island, and local officials have advised 480,000 people to evacuate to local municipal buildings. Waves are expected to reach as high as 14 meters, with sustained winds of 198 km (123 miles) per hour and gusts up to 270 kph (168 mph), the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane in the North Atlantic Ocean. Neoguri is forecast to drop 80 millimeters of rain an hour in Okinawa, according to the meteorological agency.

The Typhoon is expected to reach Japan’s westernmost main island of Kyushu by midday on Wednesday, with sustained winds still at around 200 kph. The sheer size (if not strength) of Neoguri’s storm front is being compared with Hurricane Sandy, which devastated the U.S. east coast in 2012. The projected path of the typhoon is expected to cross Nagasaki on Kyushu’s east coast, which saw 20 centimeters of rain on Thursday (a 50 year record), while parts of
Kyushu saw 25 centimeters of rain on Friday. The heavy rains have continued on Monday, and this high level of saturation puts large population centers on the island, like Nagasaki, at risk of floods, landslides, and possible power outages.

The storm is expected to track eastward along the main island of Honshu, as it weakens before reaching Tokyo Thursday afternoon....

Typhoon Neoguri on July 7, 2014, from NOAA

Super Typhoon Neoguri to brush past Japanese island of Okinawa

CNN: A large super typhoon is gathering force as it barrels along a path that is expected to take it close to the Japanese island of Okinawa. By the time it nears Okinawa early Tuesday, Super Typhoon Neoguri is likely to be generating winds as strong as a Category 5 hurricane, meteorologists say. "This is a beast," said CNN International Meteorologist Tom Sater.

Okinawa, where multiple U.S. military facilities are situated, regularly finds itself in the path of big typhoons. Many of the buildings on the island are designed to weather the powerful winds that come roaring in off the Western Pacific. Based on current predictions, Neoguri is expected to pass to the west of Okinawa, sparing the island its full fury.

"It'll brush Okinawa -- maybe Category 1, Category 2 winds," Sater said. "But they're ready for that." Authorities at Kadena Air Base, the largest U.S. military installation in the Asia-Pacific region, aren't taking any chances.

"I can't stress enough how dangerous this typhoon may be when it hits Okinawa," Brig. Gen. James Hecker, the Commander of the 18th Wing, said Sunday on the base's Facebook page. "This is the most powerful typhoon forecast to hit the island in 15 years." He advised those on the base to secure outdoor items and prepare supplies.

"This is not just another typhoon," Hecker said. "If we all follow the typhoon procedures and take care of each other, we will all make it through this typhoon safely."

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center projects that by Tuesday, Neoguri could be producing sustained winds as strong as 165 mph (265 kph) with gusts as powerful as 200 mph (320 kph). It could stir up waves as high as 39 feet (12 meters), the center predicted....

Typhoon Neoguri viewed from the International Space Station, July 5, 2014

Heat wave kills two in Japan, sends hundreds to hospitals

Japan Times: At least two people died and hundreds were taken to hospitals over the weekend as a heat wave swept over Japan, officials and reports said Sunday. A 74-year-old woman collapsed while working in a greenhouse in Chiba Prefecture on Saturday and was later pronounced dead, while in adjacent Ibaraki, a 61-year-old woman was found collapsed in her garden and died.

On Sunday, a 76-year-old man was taken unconscious to a hospital in Sera, Hiroshima Prefecture, after collapsing near a river bank. “He is suspected of having a heatstroke,” a local ambulance worker said by telephone. The official said there were unconfirmed reports that the man had been working in the rice paddies before collapsing.

More than 190 people were taken to hospitals for heat-related illnesses on Sunday as the sweltering weather continued to grip the archipelago, according to a Kyodo News tally based on firefighters’ figures.

Temperatures topped 30 at 400 locations, with a high of 36.3 recorded in Tatebayashi, Gunma Prefecture, and in the town of Ibigawa in Gifu, the Meteorological Agency said. Twenty-five locations across the country including Kyoto saw temperatures soar over 35, the agency said....

Tokyo summer scene on the river, shot by Yamaguchi Yoshiaki, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license 

Satellite boosts risk monitoring

Yuki Matsuoka in the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction: The launch of a new satellite to conduct ‘health checks’ on some of the earth’s most vulnerable and exposed regions marks a new era of disaster risk monitoring.

Japan’s DAICHI-2 will monitor disaster risks as well as the impact of disasters such as floods and landslides for disaster management activities. The satellite will also collect data related to deformation of the Earth's crust, tropical rain forests and snow and ice conditions in polar areas.

The launch of the satellite, the name of which means ‘The Earth’ or ‘The Vast Land’ in Japanese, comes as the role of space technology in the Post-2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction is gaining more focus.  The President of The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Mr. Naoki Okumura, said that satellite technology is an increasingly important part of international cooperation in disaster risk reduction.

“JAXA and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has signed a partnership agreement with the objective to promote collaboration to contribute to solving various development challenges, including disasters, for developing countries,” Mr Okumura said.

...DAICHI-2, which was launched from the Tanegashima Space Center, in Kagoshima Prefecture, can provide higher spatial resolution observation data (3 meters) and can observe up to 2,320km of the earth’s surface at any one time through night and day and in all weather conditions...

Japan culls 112,000 chickens after bird flu outbreak

Seed Daily via AFP: Japan has finished slaughtering 112,000 chickens after confirming its first bird flu infections for three years, with authorities stepping up efforts to swiftly contain the latest outbreak, officials said Tuesday.

Workers on Sunday started culling 56,000 chickens kept at a poultry farm in Kumamoto, southwestern Japan, where DNA tests confirmed the H5 strain of the virus after owners reported sudden deaths in the flock on Saturday, a Kumamoto prefectural government official said.

Another 56,000 birds were slaughtered at a separate farm run by the same owner after it was identified as a location of possible infections, the official said. "We finished the slaughtering operation late Monday and are now preventing the virus from spreading to other areas," the official said, adding that no further infections had been reported by Tuesday morning.

It was the first confirmed outbreak of bird flu in Japan in three years. Scientists say there have been no cases of the disease being contracted by people who have eaten poultry or eggs....

Second Japan snow storm leaves thousands stranded as toll rises to 23

Elaine Lies in Reuters: Snow-choked roads cut off thousands on Tuesday as parts of Japan struggled to dig out from its second storm in a week, with the death toll rising to at least 23.

Train services were suspended in some areas after the Valentine's Day storm dumped more than a meter of snow in parts of central Japan and blanketed the capital with record snow for the second weekend in a row, snarling airline traffic and slowing production at some Japanese automakers.

The freak storm dumped more than 1.1 meters of snow in Yamanashi prefecture in central Japan, the most in more than a century of record-keeping, and lesser amounts across a wide swathe of the eastern and northeastern parts of the nation. Tokyo was hit by 27 cm (10.6 inches).

By Tuesday, least 23 people had died, including some killed in traffic accidents or by being caught under snow that fell from roofs. Several died in cars stuck in the snow, apparently from carbon monoxide poisoning as they ran their car engines to keep warm.

At the peak of the storm, thousands of households lost power and hundreds of flights were canceled. Train services were disrupted and highways closed, with some of the nation's main arteries jammed with cars, some for days....

Snow on a tree in Japan in 2009, shot by contri, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, nder the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Tsunami-hit city shares recovery tips with typhoon-hit Philippines

Japan Times: A city in Miyagi Prefecture that was devastated by the March 2011 disasters is sharing its recovery lessons with the central Philippines, which is trying to recover from the damage Typhoon Haiyan inflicted in November.

Shuya Takahashi of Higashi-Matsushima’s Reconstruction Policy Division said the city is trying to become place that can “withstand disasters and is safe, where people can feel secure and live with smiles on their faces, and nurture industries and create jobs.”

Takahashi was speaking Friday at a seminar organized by the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Philippine Public Works and Highways Department. The two bodies are sharing experiences and strategies on disaster management and reconstruction.

Takahashi disclosed that just a month after the natural disasters, Higashi-Matsushima was able to come up with guidelines for recovery and reconstruction. This was followed by a 10-year reconstruction and development plan through 2020.

Takahashi said that it was very important to get the local community involved in developing the plan and other prudent measures, like setting up evacuation areas and building tsunami defenses. “We adopted a bottom-up approach to our consensus plan
ning,” he said.

Koichi Hashimoto of the Higashi-Matsushima Construction Industry Association and Chamber of Commerce spoke of the value of recycling debris from disasters, citing the city’s 97 percent recycling rate. Not only can natural materials be used for reconstruction, they can also help affected people generate income, thus rekindling the local economy, he said....

An aerial view of Tacloban after Haiyan, shot by Russell Watkins/Department for International Development, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license