Weather

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government on Monday tested sprinklers on a street in the capital to see how effective it could be in countering scorching heat as officials look for ways to keep athletes and spectators cool during the 2020 Tokyo Games. The experiment, conducted on a pedestrian walkway ...

On this liveblog, The Japan Times newsroom will be updating the status of Typhoon Shanshan as it moves toward the Kanto region this evening and overnight. The effects of the storm are expected to peak this evening and into tomorrow morning, potentially making for difficult commutes.

About 80 percent of residents in western Japan did not follow evacuation advisories issued late last month in relation to Typhoon Jongdari because they believed their houses were safe, a recent survey found. The online survey, conducted on Aug. 1 and 2, covered adults in the prefectures of Hir...

A strong typhoon is approaching eastern Japan, prompting the weather agency to warn Tuesday of heavy rain, strong winds and high waves even before it reaches coastal areas in about two days. Typhoon Shanshan was moving toward the Izu island chain, south of Tokyo, on Tuesday and is expected to com...

The heatstroke death toll has topped 100 in Tokyo's 23 wards this year for the first time in three years, officials at the metropolitan government's medical examiners' office said Monday. A total of 105 people, aged in their 40s to 90s, died from heatstroke in the period from July 1 to Sunday. I...

Thousands of households in Yamagata Prefecture were told to evacuate on Monday as heavy rain pounded northeastern Japan, causing landslides and flooding. The orders were issued to some 2,000 households in five municipalities in the prefecture. Around 910 households in the town of Shonai were ad...

The government has decided to spend ¥105.8 billion to finance reconstruction measures in areas that were hit by last month's rain disaster. The decision, made at a Cabinet meeting Friday, will tap reserve funds set aside under the fiscal 2018 budget. It will mark the first provision of full-...

The mercury topped 40 degrees for the second consecutive day in central Japan as the Meteorological Agency acknowledged that last month's deadly heat wave was "abnormal." By 6:40 p.m., Nagoya had logged a high of 40.3 degrees along with Mino, Gifu Prefecture, while Tajimi, also in Gifu, had lo...

Ninety-six people died of heatstroke in Tokyo's 23 wards in July, nearly a fourfold increase from the same month last year, the Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office said Wednesday. The figure far outstripped the 25 people who died of heatstroke in July last year, with reports of deaths rising sharply ...

More than 57,000 people were taken to the hospital over the last three months due to the nationwide heat wave, government data showed Tuesday, with the figure likely to reach a record high for the year. A total of 57,534 cases of heat exhaustion and heatstroke were reported between April 30 an...