HCKblog

Yesterday, the weather was weird in Japan.  The day previous, it had been nice… really nice, almost summer-like; buy yesterday had started out cloudy and then around 2pm-ish it got dark outside- so dark that I peeked my head outside to see what the weather was doing.  It looked like rain.

A bit later it did indeed rain, and then some!  It started to hail… it hailed so much I could hear it inside, a loud clatter like a monsoon on a tin roof.  I ran to the window to film it; but it took my iPhone so long to load the camera that it had subsided.  Luckily for me, it started again a few minutes later.  Here’s what I caught (remember to view it in 720p):

After the hail it got really, strangely calm.  There was a continuous roar in the air, like once the thunder started, it didn’t stop.  Seriously, the sound of thunder just kept going for at least 5 minutes, without any pauses.  I know because recorded and timed it.  Once I got bored of that, I came inside and made the comment that if I didn’t know better, I’d have thought that either a tornado was coming, or had just passed through.  See, I’m from Kansas so I know a thing or two about tornados.  But I had been told on more than one occasion that they simply don’t have tornados in Japan.  They were wrong.  Check this out:

I’m assuming this video exists because Japanese people simply don’t know anything about tornados and safety.  They are way too close to that thing, especially toward the end of the video.  Way too close.  I think it’s interesting to note that the area I was in was actually under a tornado warning; but there were no sirens, no TV announcements, no nothing.  There is absolutely no tornado alert system in Japan, something very shocking for a guy who grew up practicing protecting himself from tornados in school.  It’s common knowledge to all Kansans.

So I guess on top of earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, and radiation now I have to be on the lookout for tornados as well.  That’s the price you pay for cheap sushi.