Eastern Japan Marks Record-High Temperature for July

August 2, 2018

Tokyo- The average temperature in eastern Japan in July exceeded the normal-year level by 2.8 degrees Celsius to reach the highest level for the month on record since 1946, the Japan Meteorological Agency said Wednesday.

On July 23, the eastern Japan city of Kumagaya, Saitama Prefecture, near Tokyo, logged a maximum temperature of 41.1 degrees, a record high for the country for any month.

The unusually hot spell in the month was "abnormal weather seen once in over 30 years," like the torrential rains that mainly hit western Japan early that month, forecaster Motoaki Takekawa said.

The extreme weather was "not an impossibility," he said.

"Global warming has progressed. Heavy rains and very high temperatures have increased and are forecast to increase in the future," Takekawa added.

In eastern Japan, the Kanto-Koshin and Hokuriku regions exceeded their normal-year levels by 3.0 degrees to reach record-high temperatures for July. The Tokai region, which topped the normal-year level by 2.5 degrees, also rewrote its record high for the month.

The average temperature in western Japan was 1.6 degrees above the normal-year level, tying the second-highest temperature for the month on record, marked in 2004 and 2013. Jiji Press