Is Japan — and particularly the Kansai region — going to have enough electric power to get it through peak summer demand? The Meteorological Agency's three-month projection for May through July, posted on its website (www.jma.go.jp/jp/longfcst/000_1_10.html) hedges its bets. For the four main islands, the agency sees a 20 percent chance of an unseasonably cold summer, a 40 percent chance of average temperatures and a 40 percent chance of above-average temperatures. (An updated forecast will be issued this coming Friday, May 25.)
Unfortunately "average" does not necessarily mean that the temperature won't reach extremes.
"If for example we have unseasonably cool summer weather for one week, and then the following week it's extremely hot, the average for these two weeks will work out as an 'average summer,' " meteorologist Haruo Ono explains to Shukan Shincho (May 17).