Friday, September 7, 2007

Typhoon Fitow

Typhoons are a fact of life in Japan, with several occurring between May and October each year. The season peaks right about now (August to September) and sure enough, typhoon Fitow, the ninth of this season, will be passing over us soon, as you can see in my diagram:


This picture is from earlier, so it's actually much closer now! Fortunately, typhoons aren't nearly as devastating here as they are further south on the pacific coast. In the Tokyo area, there has been flooding, water damage, and several injuries.

In Akita, however, typhoons rarely cause serious damage to anything but crops, which suffer from the seawater-saturated winds. Occasionally, (every few years, say my coworkers) some structural damage also occurs, so it's still important to be careful and stay indoors when possible.

For me, the approaching typhoon meant deciding whether we wanted to open the windows and have the wind come whistling in, blowing all our papers around, or shut the windows and suffer a hot, stuffy room. It also meant that all three of my classes for today were canceled. Students are being sent home early today as a precaution. It's supposed to pass over us between 3 and 9PM, but it's still only a little breezy right now. Unfortunately, we have tests starting next Tuesday and I was going to use our class time today to finish up some last topics. I'm hoping I can arrange to see one of my classes on Monday.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Jeff! I saw your facebook note about this blog. I need to keep up with your blog since I will be visiting Japan in June or July for a couple weeks and I need to figure out what I really want to see.