Tropical Storm Shanshan has been bringing torrential rain to much of Japan, including the greater Tokyo area. Through Saturday, weather officials are warning people to be on the lookout for strong winds, mudslides, flooding, overflowing rivers, storm surges, and large waves. Meteorological Agency officials estimate that Shanshan was situated over the southwestern prefecture of Oita as of 4 a.m. on Friday. They believe the storm is slowly moving northeast, packing sustained winds of up to 83 kilometers per hour and gusts of up to 126 kilometers per hour.
Active rainclouds have been covering wide areas of eastern and western Japan. Mudslide alerts are in place for some parts of the prefectures of Miyazaki, Kagoshima, Kumamoto, Oita, Fukuoka, Ehime, Tokushima, Kagawa, Shizuoka, Kanagawa and Saitama, as well as some areas of Tokyo.
Meteorological Agency officials say bands of heavy rain clouds could form over northern parts of the Kyushu region, Yamaguchi Prefecture, and the Shikoku and Tokai regions sometime on Friday. The clouds could dump torrential rain, sharply raising the risk of disasters.
very strong winds are found in the following locations: Shikoku at 400 millimeters; northern Kyushu and Tokai at 300 millimeters; Kanto-Koshin at 250 millimeters; Chugoku and Kansai at 200 millimeters; and southern Kyushu at 150 millimeters.
Just before 8 p.m. on Thursday, a gust of 111.2 km/h was recorded at Iki Airport in Nagasaki Prefecture.
Extremely strong winds may continue to batter eastern and western Japan through Saturday.
