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from the plan-for-the-worst;-hope-for-the-best dept.
A powerful typhoon buffeted Japan's eastern coast on Saturday evening, prompting local authorities to issue early evacuation orders, with western areas recently devastated by floods and landslides in the storm's crosshairs.
Typhoon Jongdari, packing winds of up to 180 kilometres (110 miles) an hour, is forecast to make landfall on the country's main island on Saturday night or early Sunday, according to Japan's Meteorological Agency.
[...] Typhoon Jongdari is expected to barrel towards the western Chugoku region Sunday, where record rainfall earlier this month unleashed flooding and landslides, killing around 220 people and leaving more than 4,000 survivors still living in temporary shelters.
The weather agency warned of heavy rain, landslides, strong winds and high waves, and urged people to consider early evacuation.
"We want people especially in the downpour-hit regions to pay close attention to evacuation advisories," meteorological agency official Minako Sakurai told reporters.
[...] More than 410 domestic flights have been cancelled so far because of Typhoon Jongdari, while ferry services connecting Tokyo with nearby islands were also cancelled due to high waves, news reports said.
https://phys.org/news/2018-07-disaster-hit-japan-braces-powerful-typhoon.html
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 3, Informative) by idiot_king on Sunday July 29 2018, @02:48AM (14 children)
Torrential rain, mudslides, typhoons - And yet climate change is a hoax to most people.
Maybe they'll believe it when it's too late. Clearly we're on that precipice.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @03:03AM (1 child)
A typhoon is not proof of anything except a typhoon.
But maybe if you keep whining, someone will pay you the attention you so obviously desperately need.
So you can live up to your user ID.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @07:27AM
Wrongthink
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday July 29 2018, @03:10AM
The Japanese are traditionalists, like me. They were having a heat wave. And they were doing the ancient Japanese thing of sprinkling water around their buildings to keep cool. Now they're getting rain. So they don't have to sprinkle the water. There's a balance there, it's very nice. There is a cooling, and there’s a heating.
I mean, look, it used to not be climate change, it used to be global warming. People in the 1920s thought the Earth was cooling, then it was global warming. That wasn’t working too well because it was getting too cold all over the place. And actually, we’ve had times where the weather wasn’t working out, so they changed it to extreme weather, and they have all different names, you know, so that it fits the bill. But the problem we have, and if you look at our energy costs, and all of the things that we’re doing to solve a problem that I don’t think in any major fashion exists. I mean, Obama thinks it’s the number one problem of the world today. And I think it’s very low on the list. So I am not a believer, and I will, unless somebody can prove something to me, I believe there’s weather. I believe there’s change, and I believe it goes up and it goes down, and it goes up again. And it changes depending on years and centuries, but I am not a believer, and we have much bigger problems. Give me clean, beautiful and healthy air -- not the same old climate change (global warming) bullshit! I am tired of hearing this nonsense.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 29 2018, @03:40AM (6 children)
Because - in all of Japan's history, typhoons, mudslides, torrential rain, earthquakes, and tsunamis have been exceedingly rare. As I observed in another discussion, Japan is one disaster after another. A year doesn't pass without some disaster happening. That was just as true when the country was run by warlords as it is today.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday July 29 2018, @03:54AM (3 children)
Given that a cyclonic storm is basically powered by heat and Japan has had record temperatures, this typhoon will have plenty of energy to hit long and hard.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday July 29 2018, @03:57AM (2 children)
Speaking of hitting long and hard, I predict that like Fukushima this will be yet another example of disaster capitalism, and the only way Japan may be rescued from their plight is to introduce refugees from Ghana and Nigeria.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @04:14AM
If that be so - the refugees should have been "introduced" well in advance of the typhoon. Like, their decrepit boats should be arriving right now. Why is the Med the only sea with dead brown babies floating in it? We need to fix that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @04:26PM
You sound confused and stupid, but mostly stupid. Did you finish high school? Junior high? Kindergarten? Sheeeeeet.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Whoever on Sunday July 29 2018, @04:45AM
Really? Anecdotally my experience of Japan is that disasters happen with remarkable frequency. I have spent a total of 10 days in Japan: March 6, 2011 to March 15, 2011. So, one huge disaster in a period of 10 days. Assuming this was a typical 10 days, there is a high disaster rate in Japan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2018, @07:12PM
"...typhoons, mudslides, torrential rain, earthquakes, and tsunamis have been exceedingly rare... Japan is one disaster after another. A year doesn't pass without some disaster happening."
It's like you're having an argument with yourself.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 30 2018, @12:55AM (3 children)
FWIW, Typhoons are to Japan what Hurricanes are to Florida. They expect to have them every year. If you want to argue "climate change" WRT them, you need to talk about statistical frequency of Typhoons stronger than some level. That can be done, but valid arguments can't be made in headlines or articles directed at non-specialists. And they take the form of "if the climate in region X is Y degrees warmer, then the probability of a Typhoon stronger than Z is W".
Coming out and claiming "This storm is due to global warming" is just as invalid as coming out and claiming "This storm was *not* due to global warming". Now saying "Without global warming a storm this strong would only occur once in a thousand years" can be a true statement, but showing that it was a valid claim, and tracing your reasons cannot be done to a non-specialist, or even to most specialists. Also remember "If there was an economic interest involved, the law of gravity itself could be thrown into doubt.". [That's a quote, but I can't remember who I'm quoting, and by Google-fu doesn't seem up to the task either.]
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday July 30 2018, @12:54PM (2 children)
Demonstrably bunkum:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon#Records [wikipedia.org]
Note the steady decrease, despite better reporting in modern times (until the satellite era, only those that made landfall or inconvenienced ships were recorded, yet numbers of recorded major storms are higher).
Also, despite the hype, this wasn't much as these storms go. It hasn't developed a well-defined low pressure center as a proper hurricane always does. And if you want major Pacific storms right now, there's a much better-organized system stalled atop the Aleutians (and over in the Atlantic, another south of Iceland, but that's present pretty much all the time).
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=mean_sea_level_pressure/orthographic=-197.83,38.84,480/loc=-175.257,45.841 [nullschool.net]
Not to mention the 4 or 5 massive systems that routinely cruise around Antarctica. (Or, why sailing around Cape Horn was extremely risky.) Or the gigantic storm that meandered across Hudson Bay about a month ago, while all eyes were again on Japan.
Fact is these are news because the hurricane belt happens to be in the same latitude as the tropical paradise belt, so a lot of people live there. You never hear about the vastly larger storms that commonly hit the middle of nowhere. Here's one... "The Storm of the Century, 1949" (Wyoming PBS). According to the weather maps of the time, this was actually a hurricane. Over land. In winter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl6Iz4dXGdg [youtube.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 30 2018, @05:10PM (1 child)
I'm not sure what you're replying to, so I'll just say that while I lived there we expected to have them every year. They were major storms, but rarely caused many deaths. And I was young enough so that I can't be more detailed than that.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday July 31 2018, @02:47AM
Whatever random shit came into my head :) Yeah, kinda like going OMG Moar Blizzards!! where I live. Uh, it's the northern wastes, in winter we get blizzards... anywhere from none to several. Very rarely someone dies of it, but usually it's some tenderfoot being stupid above and beyond.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.