You may think that the summer season is a great time for your Japan vacation, if you go somewhere you can avoid the heat. But then you have not included typhoons in your calculation. Nothing disrupts life in Japan more than a typhoon. Read more here to figure out what to do if you get stuck in one.
From as early as April to as late as November, there is a particular type of bad weather you want to avoid during your Japan visit — or at least find ways to survive when it hits. Typhoons, a word that English has borrowed from Japanese, describe a particular type of bad weather that you should be happy if you are able to avoid.
In Japanese, the word taifu ”台風” means ”wind from Taiwan”, and that is exactly what it is.
Typhoons originate in the shallow basin of the South China Sea east of the Philippines, where the water heats up so that air rises and starts spinning, and the speed and size of the spinning air mass increase the more energy is put into the air by the sun.
Typhoons have become both more common, starting earlier, and stronger in the last few years. This is well documented, and the reason for the increased strength, frequency, and early start of typhoons depends on climate change (global warming is clearly noticeable in Japan).
Typhoons originate far south of the Japanese main islands, and they tend to move to the northeast (just like hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico) or the northwest. Those moving to the northwest pass over Taiwan and move on to the mainland. Before, they tended to move in a narrow corridor between the Chinese border with Vietnam and Hong Kong, but lately this corridor has become broader, and typhoons tend to lash Vietnam as well as more northern cities such as Shanghai.
The typhoons moving to the northeast, however, are those that hit Japan. They move across Taiwan (which indeed gets a double dose of bad weather), and then turn right instead of left, heading towards Okinawa and continuing northward towards Japan proper. From the southernmost of the Okinawan islands, Ishigakijima, you can see Taiwan on a clear day. It is only 30 km across the strait.
Many typhoons follow a more easterly course and never pass over Okinawa, getting directly to the main Japanese islands. And while the Okinawans have a tradition of battening down the hatches and buckling up while the storm lasts, it never lasts long.
The typhoons that hit the Japanese main islands last much longer, since they usually move along the land mass instead of crossing it (as in Okinawa). The winds and rain from the outer swirls of the typhoon make the bad weather last much longer.
A typhoon is essentially a spinning disc of winds and rain, with more and less dense streaks of rain spiraling out from the eye in the center, the winds spinning violently around it. The winds can get up to speeds of 120 km per hour, which is as fast as a car is legally allowed to drive in Japan (and that is in low traffic and good weather).
The winds are strong enough to tip over a car, in particular one of the ”kei” cars that weigh very little, have a narrow wheel base, and are tall. Even if it does not tip over, the kei car will be pushed sideways by the wind, and the torrential rain makes it more likely that it will slip sideways, no matter how good the tires.
The rain is what causes the most problems, and not exclusively during typhoons. Japan has five seasons: The usual four plus a rainy season (tsuyu, 梅雨) wedged between spring and summer.
The rains can really be torrential — more precipitation in a day than the rest of the year is not uncommon. This naturally causes disastrous flooding and landslides as the ground becomes supersaturated with water, especially in areas where hills have been reshaped to be steeper and the forest undergrowth removed in favor of fast-growing Japanese cedars, which is almost everywhere outside the big cities.
Torrential rains, whether during a typhoon or the rainy season, are the only thing that can stop the Shinkansen trains, and pretty much all other trains and traffic as well. The flooding can be sudden and happen in unexpected areas, especially when the rains are sudden, like during a thunderstorm.
But it is the combination of wind and rain that makes typhoons dangerous. A typhoon coming is about the only thing that can make Japanese salarymen go home early from work, especially those living in older houses. Typhoon winds can be strong enough to rip the roof tiles off a house, and since the roof itself is rather flimsy, this means the rain will come pouring in when the roof is damaged. Most houses — even modern houses — have special shutters that you are intended to mount in front of the windows so the glass does not shatter. Shatter shutters are needed because the wind pressure can break a glass window, or the winds can carry objects, which will then be traveling as fast as a car at top legal speed. To say it can cause considerable damage would be an understatement.
More modern houses have three-glass windows, which are considerably more resistant, and the apartment and condominium buildings around Tokyo have balconies that will shield the windows from the wind. But cheap and older houses only have one-pane windows. Once a little bit of dust and sand gets into the window tracks, they will catch and the pane will not sit perfectly straight, making it prone to shatter and break, hurling the glass into the room like a thousand flying knives. Mounting a shutter seems like a better option.
The only good thing about typhoons is that they pass quickly, in a matter of hours — although recently, typhoons have tended to turn parallel with the coast, which means winds and rain for days as the outer whiskers of the spinning disc continuously brush over the Japanese mainland. The alternative is that the typhoon passes quickly over the mainland. Feeling the eye pass over you, from a safe location, is a curious experience. The winds really die down in the center for a few brief minutes.
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