Weather

A zoo in Chiba Prefecture that was struggling to provide water for its animals due to Typhoon Faxai reopened Saturday, encouraged by a wave of moral and material support from the public. Ichihara Elephant Kingdom, a public zoo in Ichihara, had been closed since the storm on Monday triggered a mas...

Municipalities in typhoon-hit areas of Chiba Prefecture started recruiting volunteers on Saturday as more than 100,000 households remained without electricity nearly a week after the storm. Many of the municipalities were seeking only local residents to help fix homes and remove rubble as the nat...

Tokyo 2020 organizers blasted volunteers with fake snow on Friday as they trial ever more extreme methods to beat the heat ahead of the games. But instead of light fluffy snowflakes, the crowd, consisting mainly of Tokyo 2020 staff, was pelted with fairly coarse shards of shaved ice at a canoe...

When planners proposed the opening date of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, they pored over historical weather data in search of the day with the lowest statistical likelihood of rain. It turned out to be Oct. 10. Happily that day, a Saturday, was fine. As the national teams marched onto the track of Yoy...

Typhoon Faxai moved northwest over the Pacific toward eastern Japan on Saturday, threatening to make landfall near Tokyo as early as Sunday night, the Meteorological Agency said. The season's 15th named storm, packing winds of up to 180 kph (about 112 mph), is expected to reach coastal areas o...

The organizing committee for the Tokyo Games is considering using artificial snow to ease the expected summer heat during the events, officials said Wednesday. The committee will test the cooling effects of artificial snow sprayed onto uncovered seats at the Sea Forest Waterway in Tokyo's Koto Wa...

Summer temperatures have yet to cool off, and meteorologists believe that this year's scorching heat may have pushed back the arrival of autumn foliage season — predicting its start will likely be later than usual across almost all regions of Japan. Experts believe Sapporo will be the first ar...

Volunteers gathered over the weekend to help clean up parts of Saga Prefecture flooded by torrential rain on Wednesday, but oil leaking from an ironworks is compounding their troubles. In the town of Omachi, some 50,000 liters of oil used to cool iron is believed to have been washed away from the...

Torrential rain in southwestern Japan has left three people dead and one missing, while more than 1,900 people were staying at evacuation centers as of Thursday morning. A 96-year-old woman was found dead at a flooded house in Takeo, Saga Prefecture, early Thursday, a day after the rains cause...

Torrential rain hit southwestern Japan on Wednesday morning, prompting local governments to instruct thousands of people to evacuate as rivers overflowed and at least three people were left dead in what the weather agency called an "unprecedented downpour." In Saga Prefecture, in the Kyushu re...