Six typhoons have made landfall this year on the Japanese archipelago, already giving 2016 the distinction of being the second-worst year in terms of direct typhoon hits in modern times. But it's only Sept. 25 — the season's not nearly over and we're getting closer to matching or surpassing the 2004 record when 10 of those unwelcome visitors pounded Japan.
The 10th typhoon of 2016 (aka Lionrock), in particular, promises to be long remembered. Weekly Playboy (Oct. 3) described it as a "stampeding typhoon" and, aside from its destructive power, it can claim several other distinctions, the first being its longevity of 11 days, three hours. Its erratic trajectory was unprecedented as well. After soaking Honshu and much of Hokkaido it went on to wreak more havoc in Russia's Far East and North Korea.
Weekly Playboy quotes professor Kosuke Ito of Ryukyu University saying that No. 10 was caused by a larger than normal "monsoon vortex," a counterclockwise mass of air that usually appears around the equator but which this year moved as far north as the Philippines and Mariana Islands, which gave No. 10 more power when it moved westward.