Hailstorm and a Killer Tornado in Japan

What started to be a pleasant sunny morning today turned out to be the craziest hailstorm I ever encountered in Japan!

Here’s some hail I picked up! Look at the size of these things in the picture below!

Hail

Hailstorm at its best with noise and damage!

Hail fell from the sky with a combination of lighting, thunder, and rain. It hailed at least 4 times today with each occasion bringing in bigger hail than the previous. The largest hail I got to measure was about 3.5 cm in diameter but some people have been reporting hail as big as 5 cm, which is enough to seriously injure an adult.

If you have never experienced a hailstorm, the noise is deafening. It sounded as if someone was pouring thousands of golf balls on to the roof of your car. With all that sound, the hail damaged some glass panels, lights, and solar panels.

To many people living Kanto region of Japan, this has been the worst hailstorm they’ve ever encountered in almost thirty years.

Here’s some of the damages I took at my veranda. The old transparent plastic roofing took a real good beating! It’s about time to replace this!!!

hail damageDamages from the car shelter. The plastic roof on the right is fairly strong and new so it was not damaged at all.

hail damage on car port

As I went to investigate my residence, I saw similar damages all across the place. I also saw some cars with some small dents but I was amazed that I didn’t see any cracked windshields.

In addition, I sort of laughed at this guy who kept complaining about his car that he just bought being banged up by the hail. I feel for the guy but I’m pretty sure he’s not the only one complaining. But there goes the saying…”The things you own, end up owning you.”

I think the worst part is that right after the storm, I started to hear several sirens from ambulances rushing to people who got hurt from the storm. The sirens kept going on for several hours. I don’t know why anyone would want to go out during a hailstorm but I guess some people just really had to go out.

Tornado Alert Issued in Japan!

Many cities in the prefecture of Ibaraki have been put into alert, but Japan’s famed science city, Tsukuba, was the only city to be hit by a really large tornado. The twister seemed to have formed right above a residential area within the city and killed a 14 year old and injured dozens of people. It also left several houses roofless.

A video from a bystander:

What a way to end the Golden Week.

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