Asahikawa Tornado
I was a good ways away, probably a 30 minute drive, and wouldn’t you know of all days (and usually I have my camera everyday) I failed to bring my camera that day. So whipping out the handy cell phone I snapped a few pictures, which barely showed anything. The picture above is what I caught. You can barely see the twister dropping down out of the clouds.
The Asahikawa tornado was very thin, and probably did not even reach the ground, but it was scary anyways. Now I am no stranger to tornadoes, especially coming from Texas, and have seen a few in my lifetime which were much bigger than this one. But in Japan and especially Asahikawa, they are a very rare occurrence.
All of Japan experiences about 20 tornadoes a year, and most Japanese tornadoes are weak; a few are strong. Only one violent tornado — F4 on the Fujita Scale — has been documented prior to 2000. The last deadly tornado that Japan experienced was in Nov of 2006 which happened here where I live on the island of Hokkaido.
The tornado knocked out electricity to hundreds of homes and flipped over cars in the town of Saroma and killed 9 people. Saroma, which has a population of 6,244, is approximately 620 miles northeast of Tokyo.
From my experience, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a Asahikawa Tornado or a Texas Tornado, how big or how small a tornado is, they are a frightening experience to witness.
Tropical Cyclone Billy is no more; that leaves us with no named tropical storms anywhere.
Forget the tornado. Is this one of Asahikawa’s parks? A few more taller trees and this would be one perfect park to view tornadoes from…err, to hang out with family.
My friend here hates tornadoes. But I like nature, even her worst is beautiful. Just be sure to be as far away from her wrath when it happens.
Tornado watch means keep an eye to the sky because the conditions are favorable for the formation of a tornado.Its interesting..