Japan Breaks 50-Year Record For Number Of Typhoons - IHT

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Japan's typhoon record was broken with a bang this week as battering winds and mountainous waves overturned ocean-going freighters, ripped out trees from Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park, and shredded a 700-year-old shrine, long a national icon of tranquillity.
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The human losses stood at 31 dead, 14 missing and about 900 injured, a steep toll for a nation that prides itself on its safety. With the arrival of Songda, as the latest typhoon to churn across Japan was called, the nation has been hit by seven typhoons this year, the most since 1951, the first year of record-keeping by the National Typhoon Center of the Japan Meteorological Agency. This year, 19 typhoons, 35 percent more than normal, have whirled out of their traditional incubating area, in the Pacific Ocean near the Philippines.
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"This year, the number of typhoons has been unusually big," Mobutaka Mannoji, director of the typhoon center, said on Wednesday in an interview. He attributed the increase to surface water temperatures in the Pacific that have been nearly two degrees Fahrenheit higher than normal. Japan also has had an unusually hot summer this year, with temperatures in Tokyo remaining above 30 degrees Celsius, or 86 degrees Fahrenheit, for a 41-day period that ended in mid-August. Isamu Yagai, a Meteorological Agency colleague who teaches at Japan's Meteorology College, blamed global warming for the typhoon upsurge.
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"I can conclude there will be more typhoon activities, either in terms of more numbers or in larger sizes," he said, drawing on his interpretation of 110 years of Japanese temperature and rainfall data.
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"I think the same thing is happening with regards to the hurricanes in the U.S."
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Whatever their origin, the 135-mile-an-hour winds have created effects worthy of Hollywood, destroying lighthouses and tossing around large freighters.
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On Tuesday, the typhoon drove one 6,315-ton freighter onto rocks, sinking it. At a wharf near Hiroshima, huge waves turned over a ship full of logs from Russia.
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Elsewhere, a 6,835-ton cement tanker and a Panama-registered container ship were run aground.
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Foreign sailors account for 14 of the 31 dead and 12 of the 14 missing. On land on Tuesday, power was cut to 1.6 million homes, bullet-train service was suspended, and hundreds of domestic flights were canceled.
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On Wednesday, officials started to survey typhoon damage to the 14th century Itsukushima Shinto Shrine, in Hiroshima, a Unesco World Heritage site.
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The New York Times TOKYO Japan's typhoon record was broken with a bang this week as battering winds and mountainous waves overturned ocean-going freighters, ripped out trees from Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park, and shredded a 700-year-old shrine, long a national icon of tranquillity.
.
The human losses stood at 31 dead, 14 missing and about 900 injured, a steep toll for a nation that prides itself on its safety. With the arrival of Songda, as the latest typhoon to churn across Japan was called, the nation has been hit by seven typhoons this year, the most since 1951, the first year of record-keeping by the National Typhoon Center of the Japan Meteorological Agency. This year, 19 typhoons, 35 percent more than normal, have whirled out of their traditional incubating area, in the Pacific Ocean near the Philippines.
.
"This year, the number of typhoons has been unusually big," Mobutaka Mannoji, director of the typhoon center, said on Wednesday in an interview. He attributed the increase to surface water temperatures in the Pacific that have been nearly two degrees Fahrenheit higher than normal. Japan also has had an unusually hot summer this year, with temperatures in Tokyo remaining above 30 degrees Celsius, or 86 degrees Fahrenheit, for a 41-day period that ended in mid-August. Isamu Yagai, a Meteorological Agency colleague who teaches at Japan's Meteorology College, blamed global warming for the typhoon upsurge.
.
"I can conclude there will be more typhoon activities, either in terms of more numbers or in larger sizes," he said, drawing on his interpretation of 110 years of Japanese temperature and rainfall data.
.
"I think the same thing is happening with regards to the hurricanes in the U.S."
.
Whatever their origin, the 135-mile-an-hour winds have created effects worthy of Hollywood, destroying lighthouses and tossing around large freighters.
.
On Tuesday, the typhoon drove one 6,315-ton freighter onto rocks, sinking it. At a wharf near Hiroshima, huge waves turned over a ship full of logs from Russia.
.
Elsewhere, a 6,835-ton cement tanker and a Panama-registered container ship were run aground.
.
Foreign sailors account for 14 of the 31 dead and 12 of the 14 missing. On land on Tuesday, power was cut to 1.6 million homes, bullet-train service was suspended, and hundreds of domestic flights were canceled.
.
On Wednesday, officials started to survey typhoon damage to the 14th century Itsukushima Shinto Shrine, in Hiroshima, a Unesco World Heritage site.
.
The New York Times TOKYO Japan's typhoon record was broken with a bang this week as battering winds and mountainous waves overturned ocean-going freighters, ripped out trees from Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park, and shredded a 700-year-old shrine, long a national icon of tranquillity.
.
The human losses stood at 31 dead, 14 missing and about 900 injured, a steep toll for a nation that prides itself on its safety. With the arrival of Songda, as the latest typhoon to churn across Japan was called, the nation has been hit by seven typhoons this year, the most since 1951, the first year of record-keeping by the National Typhoon Center of the Japan Meteorological Agency. This year, 19 typhoons, 35 percent more than normal, have whirled out of their traditional incubating area, in the Pacific Ocean near the Philippines.
.
"This year, the number of typhoons has been unusually big," Mobutaka Mannoji, director of the typhoon center, said on Wednesday in an interview. He attributed the increase to surface water temperatures in the Pacific that have been nearly two degrees Fahrenheit higher than normal. Japan also has had an unusually hot summer this year, with temperatures in Tokyo remaining above 30 degrees Celsius, or 86 degrees Fahrenheit, for a 41-day period that ended in mid-August. Isamu Yagai, a Meteorological Agency colleague who teaches at Meteorology College, blamed global warming for the typhoon upsurge.

"I can conclude that there will be more typhoon activities, either in terms of more numbers or in larger sizes', he said, drawing on his interpretation of 110 years of Japanese temperature and rainfall data. "I think the same thing is happening with regards to the hurricanes in the U.S."

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http://www.iht.com/articles/538072.html