Typhoon Lands in Japan – Windy Storm-Tracking Platform | Hacker News Reader

Typhoon Lands in Japan – Windy Storm-Tracking Platform

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97 pointsMintChocoisEw44 comments

I live on the west side of Suruga bay and the typhoon pretty much threaded itself up the bay, making land fall on the Izu peninsula. In 12 years here, it definitely ranks up as one of the biggest typhoons I've experienced. However, the biggest thing is the rain. It rained pretty hard for about 24 hours before it hit. Looking at the pictures of the rivers around here from TV, I've never seen them so high. Historically the Oigawa river was impassable by an army. After they dammed it you can practically jump over it if you have a good run. But it and the Abekawa river were absolutely full. I never thought I'd see the day. Up in the mountains it is worse and they have had to release water from some of the dams, which often causes deaths from people who didn't heed the evacuation order. There have been a few deaths and people missing from landslides, etc.

Where I live, it's basically over now. We may get some trouble when the tide comes in, but the evacuation order has been lifted and probably things will go back to normal tomorrow. I'm worried about Kanagawa prefecture, though, as they seem to have got the majority of the water. Time will tell.

We got some solid rain in Guam, but nothing like Mangkhut last year. That lasted two days and cost my neighborhood a lot of trees.

A few hours ago we had a small earthquake. In our house the wind is so strong this might be the first time I've become scared due to a natural disaster.

Two days ago we stocked up on goods from Costco, and we have 120 liters of drinking water ready. Our grandparents in Chiba lost power in the last big typhoon and likely again today.

I hope the damages are not super severe, but with wind slamming our house like this no chance Tokyo is not going to have fallout.

There was even talk about a possible tsunami, just in case all that water from above was not enough yet.

JMA has it as two earthquakes about ten minutes apart. Link to the first one: http://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/20191012092552393-12182205.htm...

There was never any real Tusnami risk from those quakes:

"This earthquake poses no tsunami risk."

Also nothing here: https://ptwc.weather.gov/

A 5.0 in that area in the world is somewhat routine.

Sure, but NHK were talking about a potential tsunami warning for a moment at the time, though I'll admit that this is also par for the course. I was just taken aback a bit by the potential of water from above, from inland via the flooding rivers and more coming in from the sea.

There was even a tornado in Chiba this morning.

Preparing for a big typhoon is very similar to being prepared for a big earthquake for individuals IMHO (see below). While typhoons are somehow predictable, earthquakes are not. Isn't being always preparing for an earthquake enough? Are you always prepared for an earthquake?

This time the only thing I prepared was not going out today and following the news closer. I prepared for the last typhoon and just left my stash in the same place permanently. I've got enough to live for 1 week with no problem (long-lived food, water, money, battery, etc).

Some exceptions/differences: 1st floor needs extra flood protection, for earthquakes make sure you know where the fire extinguisher is because fires are common, etc.

Same preparation: stay away of the big glass windows, follow the news closely, have enough to live for few days, check on friends and family, be ready to get out of the building ASAP if needed, know where shelters and safe areas are, etc.

I'd first spotted Hagibis around 5-6 October through the Nullschool weather visualiser (https://earth.nullschool.net). I've made a bit of a hobby of looking at the MSLP (mean sea level pressure) channel, and rolling the forecast forward several days. What began as an unprepossessing low rapidly escallated, in the forecast, and it turns out, in real life.

Centered view as of the 5th:

https://earth.nullschool.net/#2019/10/05/0500Z/wind/surface/...

A Mastodon post from the 7th:

https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/102922339150883535

There's also been good, fact-based coverage through the Force Thirteen YouTube channel, which I've appreciated. That follows tropical weather and systems around the world, with conditions and model predictions.

https://youtube.com/user/Forcethirteen

Nullschool is amazing. The current rash of wildfires in California shows up clearly as well:

https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/particulates/surface/l...

I used Windy for the first time with this typhoon, Hagibis, checking every hour or so to make sure the forecast that the center of the storm would pass over my building at around 21:00. (It did.)

Had never heard of this app before, but somebody posted a windy.com link in work Slack, and then the presentation of the storm looked so pretty, with no ads or unwanted crap junking it up, that I took the unusual (for me) step of installing the app version on my phone.

Seems really cool (if you click around, they have all kinds of other visualizations that aren't meaningful to me but look cool), and I will probably use this next time also. One kind of weird thing about it was I couldn't find any information about who made this app and why. I didn't see an "about" link or anything like that.

Some guy called Ivo made it because he loves wind.

https://community.windy.com/topic/4/about-windy

It was made by Ivo Lukacovic, he fully owns Seznam.cz (search, news, TV, email, maps, etc.). It started as his personal project but now it's a startup with about 10 employees.

Also check out the Windy Maps app, which is basically stripped down version of Mapy.cz.

Windy has cool graphics, but it's only forecasted winds and not very granular. If you want to see actual wind observations from satellites check out ASCAT here[0] or here[1]

[0] https://manati.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/ascat_images/ascat_storm...

[1] https://manati.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/datasets/ASCATData.php

very cool -- for CA locals this one is a classic http://www.met.sjsu.edu/~wind/BigSFWindJS/streaklines_nocach...

So this is neat but I just want to point out the #1 weather app in Japan (I think) is the Yahoo Weather app and it has similar maps

https://apps.apple.com/jp/app/yahoo-%E5%A4%A9%E6%B0%97/id521...

I also want to take a moment and mention that I'm frustrated that Apple and Google apparenrtly don't care whatsoever how good their weather predictions are. I believe both use 3rd party services but I have screenshots and photos of them being hilariously wrong.

It also makes me curious, this seems like one of those big data things. Google and Apple should be able to know when their forcasts are off. They could easily test which services are more accurate for a given region instead of using just one global (and bad) weather service they're using now.

There’s a reason forecasts are called such :) I follow the Atlantic hurricane season since a few years ago and the forecast discussions of the NHC are amazingly informative, especially so when models disagree. In short, there isn’t a perfect provider and even models that are usually the laughing stock can sometimes be the most accurate.

I agree with the OP, at least for Google. For whatever reason, the weather information for my area in Japan is not even close -- for example off by 15 degrees C some days. It has either confused my location for another one, or it's just coming up with random data. It's actually a bit hilarious because whatever data they are using, it's the same data that Pokemon Go is using. I played that game for a while and the two agree exactly. I could get all the rain Pokemon without a cloud in the sky...

Yepp. It's not often we talk about Yahoo! these days, but the Yahoo Japan weather app is top notch. To the minute rain forecast. I dodged the rain many times because I waited at the office a few minutes longer or rushed to the station.

Preparations that were made at Suzuka for the F1 race on Sunday (Saturday events cancelled) - https://youtu.be/lNJ4F6ar6qw

Some final matches in the opening round of the Rugby World Cup have been cancelled as well.

https://www.rugbyworldcup.com/update/505639

https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/ort...

The main event is somewhat over now, the storm is moving inland and losing intensity and the rain is backing off.

The real concern is what happens to the swollen rivers, damns and of course the potential landslides.

God bless everyone in lower lying areas or near slopes!

It that location correct? I've got family in mariott hotel and according to https://www.google.com/maps/@35.7451047,139.6196198,9z/data=... - it's much closer. https://www.jma.go.jp/en/typh/1919l.html - is not very accurate. Is it true that it passed north of Tokio?

Looking at the map from NHK's application, it's moved quite a bit past Tokyo now. The JMA map is often an hour or two behind, unfortunately.

Center passed north of Tokyo, Typhoon is massive though. Geography of the coastline and mountains had a big effect on impact.

Everyone is generally going to be safe except those in rare situations (a vehicle accident, a safety worker swept up in water, and generally those affected by mudslides or moving water in rural areas).

I'd be really worried about low-lying areas. Storm surge followed by massive river outflows of 400-1,000mm rain. Most of that will channel out through Tokyo harbour itself.

This was nothing for Tokyo this time. But it tested the rivers going through the kanto area and almost spilled the Arakawa and Tama rivers. That could have been a great disaster!

It spilled Tama, not sure what you mean by almost.

Point me to the disaster

I definitely saw pictures of Tamagawa overflowing on NHK just before it got dark. I haven't heard any news since then, unfortunately. Not sure if the other poster knows more than that.

Desaster ?

You were the one that said it would be a disaster... I'm just telling you what I saw on TV.

Read again, I said It could have been.

You said four things:

1) This was nothing for Tokyo this time.

2) it tested the rivers going through the kanto area

3) [it] almost spilled the Arakawa and Tama rivers.

4) That could have been a great disaster!

and got a reply that #3 isn’t correct. Arguing that #4 is correct isn’t in any way a rebuttal to that.

Thank you.

thank you

I definitely see Tama almost reaching my building too.

I'm travelling Japan. This morning I took one of the last Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kanazawa. Even here the rain and the wind is scary.

I love windy for being able to see the typhoon bearing down on my house in real-time.

When looking at these radar systems, I always notice there are hurricane like spirals south near Antarctica. Does anyone know if those are actually as powerful as hurricanes, and do they make landfall?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ocean#Climate

> Cyclonic storms travel eastward around the continent and frequently become intense because of the temperature contrast between ice and open ocean. The ocean-area from about latitude 40 south to the Antarctic Circle has the strongest average winds found anywhere on Earth.

Those are temperate cyclonic storms. And yes, for whatever the reasons, they're strongly evident in the Antartic region.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the "nor'easter" is a classic variant. So called as the weather (wind, rain, snow) tends to come from the nort-east due to cyclonic rotation.

Pretty crazy Saturday evening! Got some friends crashing with me since they were in an evacuation zone. Fortunately we didn't lose power. Just enjoying a windy night.

Being able to click on the (F) to make it turning to (C) for the whole row is a great idea! I hate looking for that in some menu.

This whole thing is well designed.

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