Japan Storm Causes Immense Problems. Maybe In the U.S., Too?

Storm surge flooding
 in Nemuro, Japan due to a massive
storm there this week.
Photo via Twitter, @koutyakaden88.  

We're used to hearing about typhoons hitting Japan with terrible winds, terrible flooding and storm surges, but the country can also get nailed hard by winter storms that have nothing to do with tropical systems.  

Such is the case this week as an immense storm slammed much of the country, bringing howling winds of more than 90 mph  in places, damaging storm surges and several feet of snow to some areas.

I don't have details yet on how bad the damage is yet, but I have seen photos of severe storm surge flooding in the city of Nemuro on the island of Hokkaido. That region is being hardest hit by the storm.

Parts of Nemuro were evacuated ahead of the storm surge, and the city reported wind gusts as high as 89 mph.

The Japanese to English translation on the Japanese NHK news site doesn't work well, but it appears there are blown off roofs and blown out windows in Nemuro. 

An American Airlines flight, en route from Korea to Texas, was forced to make an emergency landing in Tokyo, Japan after it hit severe turbulence associated with the giant storm around Japan.

At least 14 people were injured about that flight, says The Weather Channel.

Parts of northern Japan are prone to heavy snows in the winter. You know how areas near Buffalo, New York and other areas of the Great Lakes in the United States can get lake effect snows.

In those cases, cold air picks up moisture from the comparatively warm waters of the lakes and dumps it as snow when it reaches the shore. We saw an extreme example of that where parts of western New York got seven feet of snow in a week last month.

Blizzard conditions in northern Japan due to
a massive storm this week.  

The same thing can happen in Japan, especially when a strong storm like this one gets northeast of the nation. Strong, cold west and northwest winds sweep across the Sea of Japan, picking up moisture.

When that moisture laden winds is forced to rise up the slopes of the mountains in northwestern Japan,  immense snowstorms develop. That situation, writ large, is happening now.

There have been reports of snow falling at a rate of five inches per hour.

All this storminess could affect you and me in the United States eventually, but it's impossible to tell how. With that storm, there's a lot of weather energy in the Pacific Ocean. That energy will ride the jet stream toward the east, like it always does.

That puts North America in the path of any storminess that does develop. Long range forecasts do call for an active weather pattern in the United States now through the end of the year at least.

Specifics are lacking, though, because long range forecasts are iffy, as I've always emphasized.

The rumored East Coast storm this Sunday is looking less likely. As it stands now, there might be some inclement weather, but I'm not seeing anything extreme.

There are signs there might be a large storm in the eastern half of the United States on Christmas Eve and Christmas, which could bring a lot of wind, rain and snow to a vast part of the country.

But again, that might not pan out. Stay tuned.

Elsewhere in the world, Australia is once again off to an early, hot and dry start to summer.  Being in the southern hemisphere, summer is getting under way there.

They've been getting unusually hot summers there in recent years. (Experts at least partly blame global warming for that.)

Big bush fires have already broken out, and they could get worse in the coming days, says the BBC.