Typhoon Tokage leaves six hurt in Japan's Okinawa chain

[senorpepr]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... on_weather

TOKYO (AFP) - Six people were hurt when Japan's Okinawan island chain was lashed by strong winds and heavy rain from Typhoon Tokage, set to be the largest typhoon on record to hit the country.

Tokage, on course to become a record 10th typhoon to land on the main Japanese islands this year, was expected to make landfall late Wednesday on Japan's Pacific side, the Meteorological Agency said Tuesday.

Packing wind speeds of 144 kilometers (90 miles) per hour, it would be the biggest typhoon to land in Japan since 1991, when the agency began classifying typhoons by the size of their strong-wind zones, it said.

The radius of Tokage's strong-wind zone -- the area in which the average wind speed is in excess of 54 kilometers per hour -- measured some 800 kilometers, the agency said.

At 5:00 pm (0800 GMT) Tuesday, Tokage -- which means lizard in Japanese -- was in the Pacific some 30 kilometers east of the main Okinawan city of Naha and moving north-northeast at 15 kilometers per hour.

The strong winds caused slight injuries to at least six people aged between 57 and 91 on the main Okinawan island, police in the prefecture said.

In Naha a 91-year-old man and an 86-year-old woman were knocked over by the wind and hit their heads on the ground, a police spokesman said.

A 67-year-old man's fingers were broken when they were caught in a slamming door, he said.

According to a computer simulation by the agency, Tokage was expected to move northeast through the Japanese archipelago on Wednesday and Thursday, bringing strong winds, heavy rain and high waves.

The nine previous typhoons that have hit the country this year caused a total of 102 deaths and left 13 missing.

Typhoon Ma-on, the most powerful typhoon to hit eastern Japan in a decade, slammed into the Tokyo metropolitan area on October 9, killing six people and paralyzing the capital's transport systems.

Just a week before Ma-on, Typhoon Meari wreaked havoc in the Japanese islands, killing 22 and injuring 89 in floods, landslides and other accidents.

[Aslkahuna]

Tokage does have a large wind field but the Ryukyus were spared the strongest winds as the eye generally moved just east of Okinawa and satellite imagery showed this part of the storm to be weaker because of the cooler air beginning to move into the back side of the Storm. The storm is likely to be below TY intensity when it tracks through Honshu and in fact will not be fully tropical as the transition into an ET system is well underway. Kadena had a MSLP of 951.8 hPa but only a peak gust of 72 mph. Okinoerabu to the NNE had stronger winds.

Steve