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Meteorological overview and mesoscale characteristics of the Heavy Rain Event of July 2018 in Japan

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Abstract

An extremely heavy rainfall occurred over wide areas of Japan from 28 June to 8 July 2018. Heavily damaged areas were distributed from western Japan to Tokai region. This event was officially named the “Heavy Rain Event of July 2018” by the Japan Meteorological Agency. This paper provides a meteorological overview of the event. A comparison with other heavy rainfall events that have occurred since 1982 showed that the heavy rainfall event of 2018 was characterized by rainfall that was unusually widespread spatially and persistent temporally. Factors primarily responsible for this event included the prolonged concentration of two very moist airstreams over western Japan and persistent upward flow associated with activation of the stationary Baiu front. In some areas, line-shaped precipitation systems led to locally anomalous precipitation totals.

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Notes

  1. Synoptic scale: horizontal dimensions ≥ 2000 km; mesoscale: horizontal dimensions < 2000 km (Orlanski 1975).

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Forecast Department, Observation Department, Global Environment, and Marine Department of JMA for their cooperation. We also thank A. Shimpo, H. Murai, R. Kurora, Y. Adachi, T. Kato, and Y. Hirockawa of JMA and N. Kitabatake of the Meteorological College for their helpful suggestions. AMeDAS precipitation data, the Radar/Raingauge-Analyzed Precipitation product, and the weather charts of JMA were used in this study.

Funding

This work was partly supported by the TOUGOU Programs of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan and by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) (Grant numbers 16H01844, 17H02964, and 18K19951).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Meteorological Research Institute, 1-1 Nagamine, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-0052, Japan

    Hiroshige Tsuguti, Naoko Seino, Hiroaki Kawase, Yukiko Imada, Toshiyuki Nakaegawa & Izuru Takayabu

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  1. Hiroshige Tsuguti
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  2. Naoko Seino
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  3. Hiroaki Kawase
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  4. Yukiko Imada
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  5. Toshiyuki Nakaegawa
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  6. Izuru Takayabu
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Correspondence to Hiroshige Tsuguti.

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Tsuguti, H., Seino, N., Kawase, H. et al. Meteorological overview and mesoscale characteristics of the Heavy Rain Event of July 2018 in Japan. Landslides 16, 363–371 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10346-018-1098-6

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